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Preparing For The Future:
General Age-Readiness Guidelines
by R' Zvi Zobin
From birth: Encourage free-movement play, unhampered by
diapers, heavy clothing, etc. In the daytime, the room should
be light but not very bright. Vary position of the baby in
crib and crib in room so that he can see the room and you
from different angles. As you move around the room, sing and
talk to him.
4-8 weeks: This is the time when the baby starts to train his
eyes to fixate, and starts to develop hand-eye coordination
and feel textures. Provide rings, rattles, mobile, squeaking
toy.
12 weeks: Now baby is learning to grasp and release, develop
hand-eye coordination, train his eyes on focusing between far
and near, fixation with tongue and following with his eyes.
He can now play with cradle-gym, stuffed toys, bell on handle
and strings of big beads (ensuring, of course that the string
cannot break causing the beads to fall off).
16 weeks: Like 12 weeks, but now bring the mobile close
enough to touch.
20 weeks: Play "bed bounce" (and say "Boom") and lift baby
gently by holding his thumbs.
24 weeks: As before, but now give him objects of varying
sizes and shapes, tops and bottoms, insides and outsides,
making various sounds. He can play with small toys, pots &
pans, spoons & cups, nested toys, etc.
28-32 weeks: As before, but now he is becoming mobile, so he
is developing eye-foot coordination by crawling and bumping
into toys and furniture, etc.
36-48 weeks: As before, plus experiencing boundries, up-down,
near-far, grasp & release, searching, crawling to follow,
field relationships, name & talk about pictures of common
things. These he can learn from being in his play-pen and
playing with blocks & pegs, clothes-pins, rolling balls back
& forth, large picture-books, water-toys and playing with
water - filling & spilling.
1 year - 1 1/4 years: Now he is learning bilaterality of
hands, eyes & feet for directional coordination and
locomotion of the whole child, orientation, directionality,
behind space, extension of arms & hands, visual steering and
guiding, piling, stringing, building, size & shape, textures,
softness, hand judgement, association like & unalikes, parts
& whole, high & low, gross & fine motor activities, symbols &
representations, identifications, filling & spilling,
saccadic hand, hand dexterity, visual cues and steering.
Suitable toys are kiddi cars, pull toys, push toys, graduated
rings on peg, sweep & mop sets, balls of all sizes, wooly &
soft toys, climbing equipment, large books, sand box and
water play.
1 1/4 - 1 1/2 years: Even more; gross motor control, movement
through space, anti-gravity experience, vestibular
stimulation, bilaterality, eye-hand pursuits, directions-
control, building, loading & unloading, personal
organization, sounds and auditory recall. Stairs (careful),
swings, a rocking horse, large ball, hammer & peg toy, 2"
blocks, personal drawers, musical box and musical toys will
all help him develop these skills.
2 years: Now the level of skills moves up to learning
bilateral coordinations, inclines & slopes, depths, balance,
speed & balance, grasp & release of total motor system, right
& left hands, interweaving, wrist rotation and imagination.
You can now use a walking rail, balancing board, boards &
boxes, climbing equipment, rocking boat, jump-board,
trampoline, peg-board, interlocking toys, toy telephone,
screw toys, small-object toys and smaller blocks.
2 1/2 years: Now his playing is teaching him gross motor
play, alternate bilaterality of feet, unity of hands, breath
control, color, in-out-under-over. Games can include
wheelbarrow, tricycle, stringing large beads, clay modelling-
large lumps, ball play, jig-saw puzzles of 6-12 pieces, large
packing boxes and soap-bubble pipes.
3 years: Suitable toys for this age include blocks of all
shapes, simple jig-saw puzzles, blunt scissors, colored
paper, easel, water colors & crayons, ball play, hopping,
step on shadows & cracks, ball-on-string, push and catch
play, toys with large nuts, bolts, wrench, etc.
4 years: Now you can provide him with an exercise-bar in the
doorway, trapeze and swinging rings, ball-on-string, garden
and carpentry tools, doll clothes, buttons & button-holes,
storing material, finger painting, Doctor & Nurse kits,
matching games, skipping, flashlight tag, target practice
(using a bean-bag, ball, flashlite and pointing), piling in
order of size, blockcraft, long stix, parquetry blocks, peg
board. You can also play games such as feel-in-bag (what is
it? draw it!), where is it? (close eyes and point), line-up
(take away 1 or add 1 and rearrange), pop-up (close eyes,
remove or add 1 and say which was added or removed), blink-
and say what you saw.
This schedule is based on data derived from the Gessel
Institute.
Please note that LCD games and computer programs cannot
replace any of these activities because they are based on a 2-
dimensional screen and do not involve the whole body.
Furthermore, the more time a child spends playing with these
games, the less time he has for real developmental playing.
Parents of children who, over this past winter, participated
in a developmental play group in Kiryat Matersdorf,
Yerusholayim, reported dramatic improvements in their
children's scholastic skills. |
