Okuzeka
Child Development & Early Education vocabulary · Physical and Motor Development

Crawl

Meaning in child development & early education, with examples

/krɔːl/verbCore term

In child development & early education, crawl means: To move along on hands and knees, or on the tummy; many babies start to crawl in the second half of their first year.

In Turkish: emeklemek

How it is used

A common motor milestone in parent talk and checklists. Babies move in different ways, such as bottom shuffling or commando crawling, and some skip crawling and go straight to walking.

Example sentences

  1. She started crawling at eight months and was soon everywhere.

  2. Some babies never crawl and go straight to pulling up and walking.

Common collocations

  • start crawling
  • crawl on hands and knees
  • commando crawl
  • bottom shuffling
  • gross motor skillsSkills that use the large muscles of the arms, legs and body, such as rolling over, sitting, crawling, walking, running, jumping and climbing.
  • milestoneA skill that most children learn within a typical age range, such as smiling, sitting without support, walking or saying first words, used to follow a child's progress.
  • infantA baby, usually a child in the first year of life; some services use the word for children up to about 18 months or two years.
  • primitive reflexAn automatic movement that newborn babies make in response to touch, sound or movement, such as gripping a finger, which normally fades during the first months of life.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Physical and Motor Development

Practise with graded reading

Reading at the right level is the fastest way to make new words stick. Pick free English books by level: