Speech and sound awareness

Speech sound development is a gradual process which happens over many years. All children follow an individual path in speech sound development as each of their life experiences is individual; children learning two languages will learn two sets of speech sounds. Children develop clear speech in quiet language stimulating environments.

They rely on both their listening skills and visual skills to follow lip patterns and match their own speech to the speech they hear. Babies engage in vocal play i.e. babbling and cooing. They rely on adults in their environment to teach the basics of conversational rules e.g. turn-taking and imitation, this helps them to attend to the detail of the speech sounds they hear.

The tables below show the sounds child typically learn at certain ages, examples of words containing those sounds and the most common errors they make. Older children with delayed speech may continue to make errors typical in younger children’s speech.

Another important area of speech sound development is phonological awareness. Phonological Awareness is the awareness that language is composed of words, syllables and sounds. A child needs to be able to identify and manipulate sounds, syllables and words within language to develop strong foundations for reading and spelling.

Manipulating sounds includes deleting, adding, substituting or reversing the order of syllables or sounds e.g., say ‘can’; now say it without the /k/; say can with /m/ instead of /k/.

Some children with phonological awareness difficulties may also experience speech sound difficulties due to poor sound discrimination skills.

Non-urgent advice: Talking tips and strategies

  • Avoid asking a 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 your child comes up to you and says ‘I drawed a tat’, accept it by saying ‘That’s a nice cat’ or ‘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 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 them to ‘show you’ what they are talking about, encouraging them to point or gesture alongside their speech
  • 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.

General resources

Videos (coming soon)

  • Multiple Oppositions
  • Fronting ‘k’ and ‘g’
  • Top tips to help children produce ‘s’

Resources by age group

0-12 months

1-2 Years

4-5 Years (Reception)

5-7 Years (year 1-2)

7-9 Years (year 3-4)

9-11 years (years 5-6)

11-14 Years (years 7-9)

14+ Years (year 10+)

Page last reviewed: 29 August, 2021