Ages 5 – 8 Early Elementary School years

Milestones for the Development of Speech Language Skills
Between third and fourth grade, children transition from "learning to read" to "reading to learn". Additionally, students are presented with more complex oral and written language.  During this stage, metalinguistic or language awareness emerges. Examples of this are: ability to interpret humor, interpret idioms, make grammatical judgments, define words, and participate in phonemic awareness tasks (e.g., segmenting words into speech sounds).  

Milestones for the Development of Motor Skills
Children between the ages of 5-8, can ride a bicycle, jump rope as well as 24 inches high with both feet together, walk in a balance beam, and skate!

Milestones for the Development of Fine Motor Skills
By the time child reaches school age, s/he can usually use one hand consistently for fine motor tasks like holding a spoon, a cup or a pencil. This is the age in which children learn to print letters, numbers, and then words. By age 7, the start to master the ability to print neatly within the lines, cut out art projects, color inside the lines and draw pictures that are recognizable.

Milestones for Social Emotional Development
It is during the early elementary school years that children grow more independent, yet fell less secure. You will find them craving attention from parents and teachers and easily hurt by criticism, blame, or punishment and may become rigid, demanding, and unable to adapt. Children at this stage of development usually increase their awareness that others have may have different feelings.

By age seven and now more socially aware, children make friends easily, developing close friends of same sex, favoring group play, clubs, and team sports clearly wanting to feel part of a group and becoming more influenced by peer pressure. By age eight, children usually display not a lot of patience, usually finding the wait for special events torturous