Starting school shifts everything. The big visible milestones of the toddler years are over; what comes now is quieter and happens outside your field of view — in class, in the playground, at a friend's house. Which is exactly why it is the stretch parents record least and later regret most.
The skills most children pick up somewhere inside this age range, grouped the way development actually happens rather than as one long checklist.
Language
Reads simple words
Sounds out and reads short familiar words.
Social
Keeps a close friendship
Has a chosen friend and keeps the friendship over months.
Cognitive
Reads the clock
Tells the time to the hour and half hour.
Self-care
Gets ready on their own
Dresses, brushes teeth and packs the bag without reminders.
Firsts
Loses first tooth
First day of school
Every range below is a window, not a deadline. Children arrive at these in their own order, and a skill that comes late says far less than one that disappears.
Reading and writing change how your child thinks. Within a few months, laborious decoding turns into understanding, and at some point you catch them reading voluntarily. That moment is a genuine milestone and almost never gets written down.
Teeth start falling out, usually the bottom front ones around the sixth birthday. The first lost tooth is a bigger event for most children than any test.
Socially, friendships become the main thing. Children now choose their friends deliberately, argue properly, and make up again. Comparison with others starts to matter, and out of it comes something like a self-image for the first time.
Responsibility becomes possible: getting to school alone, taking on a task, finishing something because they said they would.
Ask about something specific, not about the day. How was school? gets Fine. What was boring today? gets a story.
Keep capturing moments, even when they look less spectacular. The first wobbly tooth, the first book read alone, the first sleepover — those are the entries worth most ten years later.
Raise it if your child persistently does not want to go to school, falls clearly and lastingly behind the class in reading or arithmetic, makes no friends, or withdraws markedly. New stomach aches or headaches on school days deserve to be taken seriously.
Dyslexia and dyscalculia usually show up in the first two school years. Caught early they can be supported well — caught late they mostly cost confidence.
This page is general information, not medical advice. Your paediatrician or health visitor knows your child; a chart never will. If something worries you, ask them — that is what the appointment is for.
How we built this
The milestone windows follow the developmental ranges used in routine child health checks, cross-checked against the WHO motor development study and the CDC's milestone guidance. They describe when most children reach a skill, not when yours has to.
MiniMoments turns the milestone you just watched into a dated photo memory — private, ad-free, and yours to print. Free for one child, forever.