I have a son who will be 4 yrs old in 3 months, and I naturally want him to be smart. But I want to compare him to kids his age and not to where I want him to be. I am talking about does your 3 -4 yr old know his ABC's, letter recognition, counting, number recognition?

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My daughter is 3 yrs old (4 more months until she turns 4).....She can count to 20 and recite about 2/3 of her ABC's. She also knows a tad Spanish and I have taught her some very basic German (counting to 10, greeting people, etc). She can recognize most colors. But we have only begun working with recognizing written words and numbers (she can tell me how many fingers I am hold up, up to all 10). I am unsure of where this places her. I did not know these things at her age, but they have pushed education on a younger and younger crowd nowadays. She will be going into preschool in August and I do plan to look into part time daycare(social skills, and more structured than being babysat by family-they let her get away with too much). If your son knows all of those, wonderful to hear!! I would be proud.

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i would say get LEAPFROGi had 1they are fun and exciting and did help me out alotalso u can bring him to elmo playselmo also shares fun ideas and give them mathematic problems=) what will help out their careerno one wants a dumb baby!

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My little girl knows her alphabet, numbers to 15, can count, knows 20-30 sight words, can write but not really clear yet, she's got letter recognition down, knows a gazillion animals, has a huge vocabulary - but I think she's amazing for 4 years. I don't think we should push every child to "measure up" to the highest standard of smart. Let's face it - every child has his or her own talents and we shouldn't compare them. My little girl wants to learn and can sit down with a preschool workbook and my supervision for 2-3 hrs at a time - but this is highly unusual. I have a son who is 3 and he barely has letter recognition and can't say more than 3 intelligible words so far! He is developmentally delayed. The important thing is to realize that public schools if you are putting her in one are expecting alot from Kindgergarteners nowadays - expecting them to have an extensive list of skills me and my friends were not even exposed to until Grade 1 or 2. So, you do want to work on a number of things - but now is the time to begin to instill values, like praising her, teaching her how to try her best and being happy with who she is and where she is at in all areas so that she can grow up into a person with self confidence to try new things and good self esteem thinking that she can do most anything if she puts her heart and effort into it. Also, teaching them that it's okay actually good to make mistakes and/or be slow at some things. Teaching them things like patience with themselves. There's a limit on what a 4 year old can do - remembering not to push to hard and allowing children to enjoy childhood is also important because it goes fast! If you simply begin introducing him to subjects using workbooks from the store he'll be more than ready. I also let my daughter watch some educational videos on phonics, alphabet and all that - sometimes advanced topics about animals and things - she's picked up alot from that too. The big push in schools now is to have children very well behaved and socially adjusted and I don't think the public school is the best place to develop that - especially for a preshooler - parents are the best people to mold and shape that - I don't agree with where the schools are headed - we want to grow smart kids who know how to think and understand reading writing arithemetic and science - trying to teach social skills is something primarily built into kids by their parents just like moral values are. The school can't compensate for a lack of what parents do by trying to focus on being nice to others. These school killers were not raised by the public school system -they were raised by parents who blew it in a major way.

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every child is different. they grow and advance in different areas at different times. don't worry too much. he will progress normally. preschool helps alot.

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First - you really should NEVER push a child (especially a boy) into early learning. It can lead to learning disorders.That said - if he wants to learn and enjoys it, great.My daughter is 3 years and 3 months. She counts to 20-something and has known her alphabet for over a year. She does NOT have much number or letter recognition yet - although she knows how to spell her name (by SAYING the letters) I don't think she really understands what the letters look like yet.She's known her colors forever as well and knows some in English AND Spanish.All of my kids have been very different - NONE have gone to preschool and the older two taught themselves to read by the time they were 6 or 7.*I* knew the alphabet frontward and backwards (literally) by two years old. I was spelling words by age 4. I started 1st grade on an 8th grade reading level. But numbers were never my thing... stunk in math.

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My daughter is the exact same age as your son. She has been in a daycare/preschool program since age 2 and she can do the following:1. ABC letter recognition of all capital letters, most lowercase2. can count to 25, number recognition to about 153. can cut out basic shapes with scissors4. can write her first and last name using a sight card or by me reciting the letters to her, can spell first, middle, last5. knows many consonant letter soundsI really feel that her being in preschool has motivated her to want to learn more than being one on one with me. They turn learning into a game where all the kids want to be involved. They also make art projects using letters/numbers, colors and use scissors. She gets so excited about going to "school" that learning is fun for her in this environment.

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