• Avoid asking your child to say something ‘properly’. Concentrate on what your child is saying, rather than how.
• Instead of correcting, give your child good ‘speech models’. For example, if your child comes up to you and says ‘I drawed a tat’, accept it by saying ‘That’s a nice cat’, ‘It’s a fluffy cat’, emphasising the word ‘cat’. In this way, you are showing your child you are listening to them and presenting them with the correct ‘speech model’.
• Stop and wait – give your child the space to have a go, and see if they repeat it on their own. Many children will, but it’s important that they do not feel forced to repeat the word.
• If you have difficulties understanding what your child is saying, ask your child to ‘show you’ what s/he is talking about, encouraging him/her to point or gesture alongside what s/he says.
• Build your child’s self-esteem by repeating back the parts of their speech that you have understood. This shows them that they have had some success and may encourage him/her to tell you more. Give praise for other things the child does well.

Speech Sound Development Chart

Speech and sound awareness

Between the ages of 0-6 months babies experiment with a variety of vocalizations including squeals, growls, yells, and the production of “raspberries”, At around 6 months your baby will start to babble using the same sound e.g., ba ba ba, ma ma ma, da da da. Babies then go on to babbling using a mix of different sounds and also use adult- like intonation so that their utterances sound like real questions or exclamations.

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Speech and sound awareness

Around this age your child will start to say their first words. These early words may not become ‘distinct’ (clear) for some time. At the earliest stages, words and sounds are simple, usually consisting of only a consonant and vowel, or with the consonant and vowel repeated. e.g. mama, dada, no, tea, wowwow, byebye.

It is common for consonants at the ends of words to be missed off at this stage, and because of the limited range of speech sounds, many words may appear similar, e.g. “da” may be used for ‘that’, ‘daddy’, ‘cat’, ‘car’, etc.

At this age developing a child’s listening skills will enable them to focus their attention on specific sounds, crucial for them to focus their attention on speech sounds when they are ready to acquire these.

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Speech and sound awareness

At this age there is a great deal of variability in the acquisition of speech sounds. The sounds that are starting to develop include p, m, h, n, w and b, as the lip patterns for these sounds are the most visual. Playing listening games with children of this age will support their developing speech sound systems.

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Pictures of ‘Noisy Things’

Animal Pictures

Speech and sound awareness

Children are learning a wide range of sounds around age 3. These include: m, n, h, p, ng, w, d, t, y, b, g, and k. Some of these sounds will have been used by some children before this age – children can vary as to which of these early sounds they learn first. Around age 3 and a half, children also start to use the speech sound ‘f’.

Awareness of sounds (Phonological Awareness)

At 3 years of age, children are usually able to:

• Recite familiar rhymes e.g. ‘Jack and Jill’
• Produce rhyme by pattern e.g. give the word “bat” as a rhyming word for “cat”
• Recognise alliteration (words beginning with the same first sound), e.g. “blue, butterfly, they’re the same”

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Listening to Sounds
Listening to Speech Sounds in Words
Listening to Individual Speech Sounds

Nursery rhymes

Speech and sound awareness

4 years: At this age, children are learning the sound ‘l’, but might produce this as ‘y’ (e.g. light pronounced as ‘yight’). They are also learning the sounds ‘sh’ and ‘ch’, but may pronounce these with a ‘t’or ‘s’ instead (e.g. ‘Shop’ becomes ‘top’ or ‘sop’, ‘Chair’ becomes ‘tair’ or ‘sair’).

4 and a half years: At this age, children are learning the sounds ‘s’, ‘z’ and ‘j’. These sounds may also be pronounced as ‘t’ or ‘d’, e.g. ‘Sun’ becomes ‘tun’, ‘Zip’ becomes ‘dip’. 5 years: Children are now learning the speech sound ‘r’. This can be pronounced as ‘w’ initially, e.g. ‘rain’ is pronounced as ‘wain’.Children’s speech between the ages of 4-5 years old will still contain substitutions for some speech sounds, as detailed above. However, their speech should be easy to understand to people outside of their immediate family, and when speaking in and out of context.

Children’s awareness of sounds within words is developing at this age. These skills are crucial pre-literacy skills. They will be able to recognise that two words rhyme, and suggest their own rhyming words (real or nonsense words). They will be able to break words up into syllables (e.g. ‘happy’ has two beats), and are just learning to count single sounds (phonemes) within words (e.g. know that ‘cat’ contains 3 sounds, c-a-t).

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Listening to Sounds
Listening to Speech Sounds in Words
Listening to Individual Speech Sounds

Speech and sound awareness

6 years: At this age, children are learning the sound ‘v’, but might produce this as ‘b/d’ (e.g. van becomes ban’). They are also learning consonant blends but may replace these with a single consonant (e.g. ‘aeroplane’ becomes ‘aerobane’ or , ‘splash’ becomes ‘pash’ or ‘spash’).

Awareness of Sounds (Phonological Awareness)

Many of the pre-literacy skills are now present, and children are now able to:

• Match initial consonants in words e.g. recognise that ‘ship’ and ‘shop’ begin with the same first sound.
• Blend 2-3 phonemes to form words e.g. can recognise that the sounds /c/ /a/ /t/ make the word ‘cat’
• Count single sounds (phonemes) within words (70% of 6 year olds can do this)
• Divide words by onset (first consonant or blend) and rime (rest of the word) e.g. could split ‘broom’ into /br/ /oom/

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Listening to Sounds
Listening to Speech Sounds in Words
Listening to Individual Speech Sounds

Speech and sound awareness

The child’s phonological awareness skills should be well established by now. The child will be using their phonological awareness skills when spelling to help them ‘sound out’ new words. They may also play with the sounds in the words, such as using pig latin (where the first sound of a word is moved to the end of the word and ‘-ay’ is added to it, e.g. ‘pig’ is changed to ‘ig-pay’) and other secret codes.

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Listening to Sounds
Listening to Speech Sounds in Words
Listening to Individual Speech Sounds

Speech and sound awareness

Most sound substitutions are corrected by the time a child is this age. Some substitutions, e.g. ‘f’ for ‘th’, are acceptable in regional accents and are therefore not considered speech defects or speech immaturities. They only become a problem if the child begins to substitute ‘f’ for ‘th’ when writing.

If you have concerns about your child’s speech sound production or phonological awareness, please see the activities for the earlier age ranges.

Activity sheet

Speech and sound awareness

The student should now be able to produce all the speech sounds when talking, and their speech should be clear. Some substitutions, e.g. ‘f’ for ‘th’, are acceptable in regional accents and are therefore not considered speech defects or speech immaturities. They only become a problem if the child begins to substitute ‘f’ for ‘th’ when writing.

If you have concerns about your child’s speech sound production or phonological awareness, please see the activities for the earlier age ranges.

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Conversation and interaction

Young people are now able to:

• Stay on one topic of conversation for long periods and move sensibly from one topic to another
• Switch easily between informal and formal styles of talking depending on the audience
• Understand sarcasm and irony, e.g. ‘I love your shoes’

The skills for making and maintaining friendships will be established by this age, although will be tested by changing friendship groups and social dynamics. Young people will be able to read ‘hidden social rules’ and use these to interact appropriately with different groups of people – at home, with friends, talking to a teacher, etc.

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