What Should My Child Be Able to Do?
- Compares things, with words like bigger or shorter.
- Tells you a story from a book or a video.
- Understands and uses more location words, like inside, on, and under.
- Uses words like a or the when talking, like a book or the dog.
- Pretends to read alone or with others.
- Recognizes signs and logos like STOP.
- Pretends to write or spell and can write some letters.
- Correctly produces t, k, g, f, y, and –ing in words.
- Says all the syllables in a word.
- Says the sounds at the beginning, middle, and end of words.
- By age 4 years, your child talks smoothly. Does not repeat sounds, words, or phrases most of the time.
- By age 4 years, your child speaks so that people can understand most of what they say. Child may make mistakes on sounds that are later to develop—like l, j, r, sh, ch, s, v, z, and th.
- By age 4 years, your child says all sounds in a consonant cluster containing two or more consonants in a row—like the tw in tweet or the –nd in sand. May not produce all sounds correctly—for example, spway for “spray.”