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Many teachers dislike milestones because they make parents unnecessarily anxious. They can set a child up for failure, and parents for frustration. And most teachers would likely agree that they’ve never seen a tool for parents that they think is appropriate because, simply put, children cannot be put into category boxes.

Basic Concepts

• All children develop at different paces, developmental areas are interrelated, and culture and environment play a huge role. Milestones usually do not take into account whether or not a child is bi/multilingual, whether or not they have been exposed to other children and school settings, risk factors such as poverty, and cultural influences.
• Milestones are a very general way of assessing whether or not children are developing within the typical continuum of broad category skills. These include: self-help, language and communication, social-emotional skills, and motor skills.
  • Typically, milestones are monitored by the healthcare community, which often views these skills as discrete skill sets. For example, the purpose of a motor milestone screening is to determine whether a child has muscular challenges. If a child is not walking by a certain age, there could be underlying problems. The purpose of a milestone resource is often to determine whether or not a child should be referred for more comprehensive evaluation for developmental delays or challenges.  
• Early childhood educators view milestones through a holistic lens, looking at all factors in a child’s environment – family and community as it relates to a child’s development.

Some Common Resources

• CDC – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Ages 2, 3, 4, 5) – Guidelines for milestones; often shared among pediatricians and families.
• California Preschool Learning Foundations (Vol 1, 2, 3) – Very comprehensive. Learning standards for classrooms.  
• ASQ-3 – Used to compare how a child demonstrates their skills at home vs. at school to see if there are any differences.  
• HELP charts – A visual tool that prides itself on being ‘practical’. However, it is not commonly used among preschool teachers.
• Writing assessments – Screeners by renowned occupational therapist, Jan Olsen, and her team.
• Independent Schools of the San Francisco Bay Area uses this checklist for student evaluation as a data point for pre-Kindergarten to Grade 1.