What to expect when

• Gaze at faces and copy some facial movements from an adult e.g. sticking out tongue or opening mouth

• Turn to main carer’s voice across the room

• Play by exploring objects - putting them in my mouth, hitting and shaking them

• Use different cries to express different needs

• Make cooing, gurgling, laughing and squealing sounds in response to someone else e.g. when spoken to or played with

• Make sounds to get someone’s attention

Activities to support your child's development at 0-6 months

• Respond to my name by looking

• Watch a toy being hidden then look for it

• Recognise what objects can be used for and show this by my actions e.g. brushing my hair with a hairbrush/ putting toothbrush in mouth

• Give an object to an adult when asked (although I might take it straight back)

• Hold up and show objects to other people

• React with smiles and movements to familiar games such as peek-a-boo, pat-a-cake and favourite songs

• Recognise the names of family members e.g. look to Mummy when someone says “where’s mummy?”

• Wave my hands or put my arms up when I hear ‘bye bye’ or ‘up’

• Show understanding of a few everyday words and simple commands like ‘no’, ‘clap hands’ ‘where’s your shoes?’

• Shake my head to tell someone ‘no’

• Reach towards things of interest or to show I want something

• Babble tunefully and make sounds deliberately to communicate with other people

• Copy playful voice sounds e.g. blowing raspberries or kisses

Activities to support your child's development at 6-12 months

• Look when an adult points

• Put related objects together when playing e.g. put a spoon in a cup or put trains on a track

• Copy pretend actions from an adult e.g. feeding a teddy

• Point to show someone something interesting

• Use familiar gestures such as clapping, blowing a kiss, thumbs up, high five

• Understand a number of different words including parts of the body, clothes, objects around the house and simple pictures in books

• Follow simple instructions e.g. ‘give me the cup’

• Tell someone I want something by urgently pointing, reaching and making sounds

• Copy symbolic sounds such as vehicle and animal sounds during play

• Copy an adult to say familiar words and to join in with parts of favourite nursery rhymes

• Use some first words of my own

Activities to support your child's development at 12-24 months

• Pay attention to activities I enjoy but may need to ignore everything else to concentrate

• Enjoy pretending in play e.g. give dolly a bath or pretend to feed dinosaurs

• Seem to understand more and learn new words each week

• Understand a few action words (verbs) such as ‘sit down’, ‘clap’, ‘jump’, ‘sleep’

• Understand simple instructions and questions e.g. ‘get your shoes’ ‘who’s that?

• Name a range of familiar things and like to copy new words. Words may not be fully clear yet.

• Use my own name to talk about myself

• Put two words together to say simple phrases e.g. ‘more bubbles’ ‘Daddy gone'

Activities to support your child's development at 2-3 years

• Listen eagerly to stories and request favourites over and over

• Use imagination in play e.g. have a tea party with toys or pretend a cardboard box is a car

• Understand use of objects e.g. ‘show me what you can ride’ – ‘a bike’

• Understand describing words e.g. big, little, wet, dirty

• Understand position words ‘in’ ‘on’ and ‘under’ e.g. ‘put teddy under the table’

• Answer ‘what, where, who’ questions

• Use 4-5 words or longer in a sentence when talking

• Use different types of words including objects, actions and describing words

• Ask questions e.g. ‘What’s that?’ ‘Where’s teddy?’ ‘Who’s that?’

• Make errors with pronouncing the sounds in words but parents can usually understand

Activities to support your child's development at 3-4 years

• Concentrate on activities I enjoy but can stop what I am doing to listen

• Play make-believe games with other children

• Understand complex instructions e.g. put the big spoon under the table

• Understand negatives e.g. no, not

• Understand questions about the past, present and future e.g. ‘what happened yesterday?’

• Answer simple ‘how?’ and ‘why?’ questions

• Use longer sentences of 5-8 words and link sentences together with words like ‘and’ and ‘because’

• Talk about categories of words e.g. apples and pears are ‘fruit’, pigs and sheep are ‘farm animals’

• Talk about an activity or event e.g. how to make a sandwich or what I’ve done at school today

Activities to support your child's development at 4-5 years

• Play cooperatively with other children following games with simple rules.

• Focus on an activity for longer without needing reminders

• Hold simple conversations, listening and responding appropriately

• Use pronouns e.g. I, he, she, we, they

• Understand concepts of time, sequence and quantity e.g. first, last, before, after, whole, half

• Retell a short familiar story when looking at the pictures

• Use descriptive words (adjectives) to describe people and objects e.g. shiny, loud, slowly

• Understand emotion words such as happy, excited, scared.

• Tell you what words mean e.g. a mouse is a small furry animal.

• Use plurals e.g. tooth-teeth, man-men

• Use accurate endings on words to show past, present and future e.g. ‘played, playing, will play’

• Understand and enjoy riddles and simple jokes

• Pronounce most sounds clearly, except for possible errors with ‘r’ ‘th’ and complex words