• Avoid asking the child to say something ‘properly’. Concentrate on what the child is saying, rather than how.
• Instead of correcting, give the child good ‘speech models’. For example, if the 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 the child you are listening to them and presenting him with the correct ‘speech model’.
• Stop and wait – give the 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 a child is saying, ask the child to ‘show you’ what s/he is talking about, encouraging him/her to point or gesture alongside what s/he says.
• Build the 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 development

By the time children start Reception class, they will use a wide range of speech sounds in their talking. Their speech should be easy to understand to people outside of their immediate family, although they will still be learning to use the following sounds:

4 years: ‘l’ (may be pronounced as ‘y’, e.g. ‘light’ – ‘yight’), ‘sh’, ‘ch’
4 and a half years: ‘s’, ‘z’ and ‘j’ develop around this age. 5 years: ‘r’ is one of the last sounds to be developed

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, and are learning to count the single sound (phonemes) within words (e.g. know that ‘cat’ contains 3 sounds, c-a-t).

See our ‘speech sound development’ and ‘phonological awareness development’ charts for more information.

Activity sheet

Listening to Sounds // All Ages
Listening to Speech Sounds in Words // All Ages
Listening to Individual Speech Sounds // All Ages

Speech and sound development

Most speech sounds will have been learnt by now, however children may still be learning the speech sound ‘v’. Children may still have difficulty saying words containing two consonant clusters together, e.g. ‘splash’, ‘tree’, ‘library’.

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 ‘shoe’ begin with the same 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/

Activity sheet

Listening to Sounds // All Ages
Listening to Speech Sounds in Words // All Ages
Listening to Individual Speech Sounds // All Ages

Speech and sound development

The last speech sounds that are learnt are usually ‘th’ (voiced, in words such as ‘this’, ‘brother’, with’) and ‘th’ (voiceless, in words such as ‘thumb’, ‘nothing’, ‘mouth’).

Awareness of Sounds (Phonological 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.

Activity sheet

Listening to Sounds // All Ages
Listening to Speech Sounds in Words // All Ages
Listening to Individual Speech Sounds // All Ages

Speech and sound development

Most students are able to produce all of the speech sounds by the time they are 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.

Student’s phonological awareness skills are also now well developed, and they are able to use these skills to support their reading and writing (e.g. splitting multi-syllabic words into parts to read or spell them).

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

Activity sheet

Listening to Sounds // All Ages
Listening to Speech Sounds in Words // All Ages
Listening to Individual Speech Sounds // All Ages