Speech development in children 4–5 years old: age norms

Features of speech development in children 4–5 years old

Preschoolers gradually improve all components - phonetics, grammatical structure, vocabulary and coherence.

Features of sound pronunciation

The first criterion for the development of speech in children aged 4–5 years is phonetics, or sound pronunciation. A 4-year-old child pronounces consonant sounds softly (instead of “spoon” he will say “lezetska”). There is also a lack of clarity in the pronunciation of whistling and hissing sounds - children skip them or replace them;
Whistling “ts”, “s”, “z” replace: “s” and “ts” - with “f”, “s” - with “t”, “z” - with “d”, “ts” - with "T";
Hissing “sh”, “sch”, “zh”, “ch” are replaced: “sh” - with “s” or “f”, “zh” - with “z” or “v”, “ch” - with “ ts" or "t", "sch" - to soft "s" or "t";
The sounds “l” and “r” are often omitted or can be replaced with a soft “l”.

A 5-year-old child perceives and pronounces sounds better and no longer softens them, and does not replace hissing and whistling sounds with other sounds. Children now pronounce many sounds correctly, clearly, with correct articulation. Although some still mispronounce sibilants, "r" and "l".

Complex and long words are abbreviated, syllables are omitted: instead of “car” they will say “atabil”. Here are some other mistakes children make when pronouncing words:

The sounds are rearranged: “first” - “first”;
Consonants are skipped when they come together: “big boy” - “barefoot boy”;
Vowels are inserted in words with a combination of consonants: “I don’t know”, “ship”.

Five-year-old children develop speech at a higher level: they speak more correctly, shorten words less often, change syllables and begin to form words by analogy.

Guys' vocabulary

The second criterion for the development of speech in children aged 4–5 years is the volume of the active vocabulary. By age 4, the vocabulary includes 1000 words.

A 4-year-old child’s volume of active and passive vocabulary is constantly increasing. He talks a lot, loves to listen to rhymes and stories, remembers and retells fairy tales.

A 5-year-old child’s vocabulary doubles – now it contains up to 2000 words.

4-5 year old children are “why”. They are interested in everything in the world and constantly ask their parents questions. To develop speech, it is important to answer questions in detail, provoke a child into dialogue, and look for answers to questions together - all this expands vocabulary.

Grammatical structure of speech

The third criterion for the development of speech in children aged 4–5 years is grammatical design, that is, the complexity of sentences, the sequence and coordination of words.

A 4-year-old child speaks in short and simple sentences. They contain no more than 3–4 words. But speech is gradually improving: phrases become more complex and longer.

The grammatical structure at this age is just being formed, so it is far from perfect. Here are the mistakes children make: they incorrectly arrange the sequence of words (instead of “I don’t want” they will say “I want no”) and incorrectly coordinate the words (“one cat”, “I have three friends”).

By the age of 5, children speak in common and complex phrases, their speech becomes more logical and coherent.

Speech coherence of preschoolers

The fourth criterion is coherence and logic of statements. The first fragments of dialogic speech are already observed in three-year-old children. By the age of 4 - 5 this skill is improved.

In preschoolers, speech development reaches a new level: they can retell a simple fairy tale (“Kolobok”, “Ryaba Hen”). Children cannot yet write a story based on a picture, but they enjoy looking at the illustrations and answering questions about them.

With normal speech development in children aged 4–5 years, the ability to compose stories based on pictures and answer questions about the content of a fairy tale or story is noted. At this age, children enjoy looking at picture books and can talk about their desires and impressions of the cartoon they saw.

Types of speech therapy classes for children

Speech development classes may consist of:

finger games;
articulatory gymnastics;
games for onomatopoeia, hearing development, logorhythmics (poetry with movements);
poems for replenishing vocabulary, speech development.

Speech therapy classes should be conducted daily. The most difficult thing about them is to be able to interest the child. Therefore, it is not at all necessary that such classes be conducted like lessons at school, where students humbly sit at their desks and the teacher explains a new topic in a monotone voice. For kids, such activities are akin to torture. Turn on your imagination: let your baby learn with you, playing on the rug, sitting on a pillow, hiding in his hut, jumping or running... The main thing is the final result. Build your lessons in a playful way - this way your child will remember the material better and won’t get tired at all.

In addition, when arranging speech therapy classes with your child at home, you should:

Start classes with 2-3 minutes, gradually increasing their duration to 15-20 minutes.
Make classes interesting so that the child has a desire to study. Never force your child to do exercises - you will get the opposite result.
Perform tasks more often, but let them be short-term.
Treat your child’s failures easily, without shouting, with understanding. Analyze each situation together, for example, look for the reason why the child has such a naughty tongue, and how to fix it.

Now let's look at each of the types of speech therapy games listed above.

Finger games

Through finger games, a child's fine motor skills develop. How does this help speech development? Scientists have found that there is a close relationship between the human hand and the part of the brain that is responsible for speech. Therefore, by learning texts using finger exercises, the child develops spatial thinking, imagination, reaction speed, attention and emotional expressiveness. Memorizing texts occurs faster, and speech becomes more expressive.

The effectiveness of finger games is achieved if you work with your child daily, devoting only 5 minutes to such exercises. Let's look at a few examples of finger games.

"Flower". Fingers pointing up, gathered together. We make a bud from half-bent palms, pressing them together. We begin to pronounce the quatrain, performing movements on every second line:
The sun is rising -
The bud is blooming! (spread the fingers of both hands to the sides, keeping the lower part of the palms together)
The sun is setting -
The flower goes to bed! (return to the starting position).
"Kitty." Place your palms on the table and clench them into fists. To the words “Fist - palm. “I’m walking like a cat,” we simultaneously straighten our fingers, without lifting the handles from the surface of the table, and squeeze them. To complicate the exercise, unclench your palms alternately on the count of “one, two.” You need to repeat the exercise 3-5 times.
"The bird is flying." Cross your arms with your palms in front of you. Interlace your thumbs together to imitate the head of a bird. The remaining fingers are wings that will need to be flapped without separating the fingers.
The birds have flown (flapping their wings)
We sat down and sat, (press our palms to our chests)
Then we flew.
"Maple". This game is suitable for children 3 years of age. All movements are performed in accordance with the text of the poem:
The wind quietly shakes the maple tree, (spread your fingers and pull them up)
Tilts to the right, to the left: (swing your palms to the right and left)
One – tilt and two – tilt, (tilt your palms as low as possible in the indicated directions)
The maple leaves rustled. (we move our fingers quickly)
"Cake". We perform movements according to the text of a poetic work.
We remember the dough with our hands (squeeze and unclench your fingers several times)
We will bake a sweet cake. (think imaginary dough)
Lubricate the middle with jam (make circular movements with your palms on the table surface)
And the top with delicious cream (with three palms touching each other in a circular motion)
And coconut crumbs
We will decorate the cake a little (we imitate the action with both hands)
Read also: Lesson in the first junior group “Choose a healthy lifestyle”
And then we’ll make tea -
Invite a friend to visit! (we shake our left hand with our right hand).
"Winter". Suitable for children 4-7 years old.
One, two, three, four, five, (fingers bend one at a time)
We went out into the yard for a walk.
We sculpted a snow grandmother (we perform the movement of sculpting snowballs)
The birds were fed grains (we throw grains, rubbing our fingers together)
After we rode down the hill, (we run the palm of our right hand over our left palm)
They were happily lying around in the snow. (we alternately place the pens on the table surface, either with our palms or with our backs)
We came home in the snow, (shake off the snow from our palms)
We ate borscht and went to bed. (we make movements with a spoon and pretend to be asleep by folding our hands, palms to palms, and placing them under our cheeks)

Finger games can be used as physical education during speech therapy classes. They help to change the type of activity without losing children's attention and desire to learn. In addition, it is interesting, fun and useful. The main thing is to tell the poems with exciting expression and clearly show the movements.

In addition, finger games help:

develop coordination of movements of both arms of the child;
combine the child’s speech and physical activities, use them simultaneously;
develop precise and differentiated movements of children’s fingers and hands;
learn to repeat the movements of adults;
become more attentive, develop visual perception;
improve memory, imagination, perseverance.

Finger games need to be done systematically. Classes are possible with one child or with a group of children. However, it is important to take into account the age of the children, their mood, readiness for classes, desire and opportunity.

Articulation gymnastics

You can find the presentation and musical accompaniment for articulatory gymnastics on this page.

Articulatory gymnastics is necessary for correct sound pronunciation, strengthening the muscles of the face, tongue, lips, and soft palate. There are many exercises, a specialist will help you choose the most suitable ones for your sounds.

Tasks are divided into static and dynamic. Each has a name that your baby can easily remember, which will make it much easier to understand the instructions during class. Using a little imagination, you can go on fabulous trips with your child, where the main character will be the child’s tongue. There are many variations, it all depends on you. Below are the same exercises; after reading the descriptions, you will understand that they are not complicated and do not require additional knowledge from you (parents).

Articulatory gymnastics is a group of exercises for the tongue and lips. They are the main ones in the process of sound pronunciation. If the tongue is not developed enough, a person will not be able to pronounce sounds, which means that his speech will be incomprehensible or not clear enough.

They perform articulatory gymnastics in front of a mirror - this way you can see the correct movements of the tongue and lips during exercise. It is very important for children to see how his tongue and lips move, how and where they are located. This way, understanding of their correct location quickly comes, on which the effectiveness of articulatory gymnastics depends. Speech therapists recommend doing the exercises twice a day for 5-7 minutes. As a result, your child will receive correct and clear speech.

Let's look at a few simple but effective exercises.

"Smile." Stretch your lips strongly in a smile, but your teeth should not be visible. Hold a smile for 30 seconds.
"Fence". Smile hard so that your teeth are visible, hold the smile.
“Let’s punish the naughty tongue.” Open your mouth slightly, place your tongue on your lower lip and, slapping it with your lips, pronounce “five-five-five...”.
"Tube". Open your mouth, stick out your tongue and try to bend its side edges upward in the form of a tube, hold it in this position for 30 seconds.
“Let’s lick the jam.” Slowly, without lifting the tongue, first lick the upper lip from corner to corner, then repeat the procedure with the lower lip.
“The clock is tick-tock.” Make a smile, open your mouth slightly, then use the tip of your tongue to touch the corners of your mouth one by one.
“Brushing our teeth.” Smile, open your mouth slightly, then with the tip of your tongue, pressing it hard enough, brush the inside of the teeth of the lower row (7-10 times). Repeat the same exercise with the teeth of the upper row (7-10 times).
"Swing". Smile and open your mouth wide. Then lower the tip of the tongue behind the bottom row of teeth by “one”, and lift it by the top row by “two”. Repeat – 4-5 times.
"Snake". Open your mouth, stick out the narrow part of your tongue from your mouth and quickly hide it back. Touching teeth and lips is prohibited.
"Rent a pencil." Place a pencil on the table in front of the child. Ask him to smile, place the wide front part of the tongue on the lower lip and, slowly (exhaling air), blow on the pencil so that it rolls along the surface.

In addition to articulatory gymnastics, exercises are used aimed at developing the voice, breathing, and speech hearing. In this complex, classes will allow the child to develop correct sound pronunciation.

Norm of speech development for children 4–5 years old

Vocabulary – 2500 – 3000 words;
Invents new words, rhymes;
Adjectives, complex prepositions, and personal pronouns appear in the vocabulary;
Periodically groups objects into categories (dishes, fruits, animals);
Pronounces sounds more clearly and correctly;
Can say several grammatically formed phrases.

The speech development of children aged 4–5 years is characterized by a sharp leap forward: they willingly talk, rush to speak out, which leads to errors in the logical construction of phrases, sound pronunciation, verb agreement, gender and number.

Role of parents

You should not assume that classes with a speech therapist alone will help the child completely solve the problem - parents should take a direct part in this. The child spends most of his time at home, so training should be carried out there.

Speech therapists advise parents to adhere to the following rules.

Do not scold the baby for mistakes he has made in pronouncing sounds, but correct them.
Encourage the child for his efforts and success, listen carefully to what he says about classes with a speech therapist, and show sincere interest.
Ensure that the speech of family members is literate and correct.
Before showing this or that exercise to a preschooler, you should practice in front of the mirror, check that everything is working out clearly and correctly.
Ensure that children complete the speech therapist’s homework.
Strives to ensure that every task is completed to the end, correctly, and diligently.
Conduct classes daily - they can be small, but mandatory, they should become a good habit.

Specialist speech pathologists advise creating an atmosphere of correct speech for the child: reading him poems, fairy tales, singing songs more often, discussing any natural phenomena with the child, but it is better to keep TV watching to a minimum.

Exercises for speech development in children 4 – 5 years old

We offer a set of exercises consisting of 4 blocks - to work on each component.

Block 1 for speech development: vocabulary

Exercise 1. Select actions for the subject. Ask your child what each animal does: dog (barks), cat (meows), bird (flies), snake (crawls).

Exercise 2. Selecting signs. Discuss different objects with your child by analogy: what is it? What is it like? He must list as many characteristics of the object as possible (for example, a hat is red, warm, winter, childish).

Exercise 3. Selecting antonyms. Play the game "Reverse". Name the sign, and the baby must name its opposite (for example, snow is white - no, black).

Exercise 4. Learning new words. Thematic pictures by category will be useful: “Clothing”, “Transport”, “Furniture”, “Fruit”, “Vegetables”, “Animals”, “Professions”.

Block 2 for speech development: grammar

Exercise 1. Singular and plural. The parent calls the child a noun in the singular, and he must say it in the plural.

Exercise 2. Learn the genitive plural of nouns. Give your child examples: there is no milk in the glass, there is a lot of snow in the yard, there are no cars on the street.

Exercise 3. We learn to agree adjectives and nouns in number and case, nouns with numerals. Ask your child to answer: which sea is (blue), what color is the ribbon (red), and what color is the sand (yellow). Then count: one egg, and two (eggs)?, two pencils, and six (pencils)?

Exercise 4. Learning to form adjectives from nouns. For example, what kind of leather bag? (leather), what kind of raspberry jam? (raspberry).

You can also practice using prepositions, suffixes, prefixes, and pronouns with the kids.

Block 3 for speech development: phonetics

Exercise 1. Theory. Tell your child about sounds, their position in a word, why they are needed and where they come from.

Exercise 2. Identify the sound in the word. Say any word with an emphasis on a certain sound. Ask your child what sound you indicated. Then ask to answer whether the word has a sound that actually does not exist in it (the child does not know about this).

Exercise 3. Name the words. Choose a sound and ask your child to name the words that begin with it.

Block 4 for speech development: connectivity

Exercise 1. Wimmelbook. A great way to improve speech coherence and teach imagination is to look at pictures in a book and come up with stories about the characters.

Exercise 2: Retelling the story. Tell or read a fairy tale or short story to your child. Ask to retell it.

Exercise 3. Think and draw. Come up with a story together with your child, write it down and draw a comic book for it.

The best way to develop speech and its coherence is to talk a lot with your child, discuss books, cartoons, films, conduct a dialogue, read good books to him.

What is speech therapy and what are its methods?

Speech therapy literally translated from Greek means “speech education.” To summarize, we can say that this is the science of the development of speech skills, the causes, mechanisms, symptoms of speech disorders and methods of their prevention and correction.

There are many tools in the arsenal of speech therapy. Among them:

articulation gymnastics;
activities to develop fine motor skills;
exercises on onomatopoeia, hearing development, logorhythmics;
repeated repetition of verbal constructions;
breathing exercises and voice exercises;
exercises for individual sounds.

In each specific case, the methods are individual. The tasks are different - to prevent, correct, restore, but the goal of the classes is one - correct-sounding speech.

In a broader sense, the goal of speech therapy is to educate a person with speech disorders and help him with social adaptation.

Now let's move on to the description of speech therapy exercises.

Diagnosis of speech development disorders in children 4–5 years old

There are several groups of speech disorders:

Sound pronunciation defects. Articulates sounds incorrectly, replaces and omits them, swaps syllables in words;
Lexical violations. Poor vocabulary, a 5-year-old child does not understand the meaning of words;
Connectivity problems. Answers in monosyllables, there are no detailed answers, the narrative is illogical, the structure and grammatical order are broken;
Melodic intonation defects. Does not control his voice, strength, timbre, pitch are impaired, the voice is inexpressive, monotonous, does not use interrogative and exclamation forms;
Violation of tempo and rhythm. Speaks quickly or slowly, stammers, stops, speaks words syllable by syllable;
Misunderstanding of spoken words. The most complex form of speech development disorder listed above.

If you suspect a delayed disorder in your child, do not waste time - show him to a neurologist and speech therapist. The sooner you start correctional work, the faster the child will “catch up” with the age norm for speech development. An excellent solution would be to enroll your child in a speech therapy group in kindergarten.

Variety of forms and games

To prevent a preschooler from getting bored of repeating the same thing several times, you should think through an unusual game scenario and give him different tasks:

not just pronounce words, but make rhythmic movements with your feet or hands in time with them;
“teach” the toy a simple phrase or rhyme, show how to pronounce the text correctly;
pronounce the text, imagining yourself as a fox or a bunny, make appropriate facial expressions and gestures.

You can make a speech therapy session even more exciting if you dress the baby in the costume of the animal being depicted.

Rhymes and sayings can not only be pronounced, but also sung, coming up with a suitable motive for them.

You can stimulate the development of fine motor skills, which are directly related to the speech center, by performing finger gymnastics - putting special dolls on your fingers, creating dramatizations, while simultaneously pronouncing poems and phrases with the sound being practiced. For example, when working on the phoneme [p], you can offer a preschooler a pig finger puppet and ask him to grunt.

To prevent your child from getting tired, every 5-10 minutes of class you should take a break and do breathing exercises. For example, “Dandelion” - take a deep breath through your nose, as if inhaling the aroma of flowers, and then exhale through your mouth, as if blowing on a fluffy dandelion.

Features of practicing hissing sounds

To teach a child to correctly pronounce hissing sounds, you must first introduce whistling sounds. If a child in the fourth year of life has learned to pronounce whistling sounds, then there should be no problems with hissing sounds. You can install them with a few simple exercises.

"Naughty tongue." The child sticks the tip of his tongue out of his mouth. Then he lightly slaps it with his fingers, while saying: “five-five-five.”
"Delicious jam." The lower lip is pulled down so that the teeth are visible. And the tip of the tongue licks the upper lip, as if it is very sweet there. At the same time, the lower jaw should remain motionless during the exercise.
“Hide the candy.” Mouth closed. Tighten your tongue and touch your left, then your right cheek. It's like there's candy hiding behind your cheek.

Repeat exercises at least 5 times.

Note! Producing the sounds of native speech is very important for children. It will help them not only make contact with their peers, but also better master the preschool and school curriculum. Parents have the power to help their children avoid difficulties in the future and put the sounds correctly in time.