Speech Skills In Preschool

Preschoolers between 3 and 5 years love to learn.  They also love to talk about what they have learned.

It’s a magical time of growth in language and refining speech clarity.  Preschoolers learn more concepts and as a result, sentences get much longer. Social skills become more sophisticated and preschoolers start to express their emotions.

At three, expect your preschooler to understand and start speaking about concepts

  • pronouns (he, she, his, her)
  • rote counting and quantity (I have three cookies.)
  • a few colours
  • negation (It’s not a bear.)
  • follow simple stories
  • category words (clothing, animals, food)
  • answer simple questions of who, what, where
  • improve articulation of sounds to about 80% accuracy

 At four, expect your preschooler to understand and start speaking about concepts

  • location concepts (beside, behind, in front of)
  • time concepts (later, this morning, this afternoon, at night)
  • shapes (circle, square, triangle)
  • follow 3-4 details in a sentence
  • answer WH questions, who, what, where, when
  • adjectives (The hamster has little ears.)
  • past tense (The ice-cream melted.)

At five, expect your preschooler to understand and start speaking about concepts

  • finer body parts (ankle, elbow, forehead, eyelashes)
  • written forms of language (“Ryan” that’s how you spell my brother’s name.)
  • tell a story in sequence
  • count to 10 and gives the correct number (I need five stones.)
  • correct absurdities (That’s not right. A hat doesn’t go on my foot.)