This page is all about 4 year old speech and language skills. Keep in mind that these milestones are based on research about typically-developing children but this information is not meant to diagnose a speech-language delay or disorder. There is a wide range of “normal” and even if your child is slightly delayed in a few of these areas, it doesn’t necessarily mean he or she has a speech or language delay. Please contact a speech-language pathologist for a screening if you are concerned about your child’s speech and language skills. All norms are taken from the Liguisystems Guide to Communication Milestones which sites the specific resources and research articles used to find each milestone.
Speech Sound Development
By this age, your child should be able to consistently make the following sounds correctly:
-/p/, /b/, /m/, /h/, /n/, /w/, /d/, /k/, /g/, /d/, /f/, “y”
Your child’s speech should be understood by a stranger about 75%-90% of the time.
Grammatical Markers
Your child should be correctly using most of the following grammatical markers:
- Pronouns:
– I, me, you, he, she, him, her, we, us, they, them
How to teach the pronouns “he” and “she”
- Possessive Pronouns:
– My, mine, your, yours, his, her, hers, our, ours, their, theirs - “-ing” on the end of verbs
How to Teach Present Progressive “-ing”
- Plural -s (The apples)
- Possessive ‘s (Mommy‘s ball)
- Past tense verbs (jumped, ran, etc.)
- Regular third person singular (he jumps, she runs)
- Articles (the ball, a banana)
How to Teach Articles “the” and “a”
- The conjunction “and”
How to Teach the Conjunction “And”
Your child should also be producing sentences with an average length of 2.75-4.5 words/morphemes.
How to Increase Sentence Length
Pragmatic Skills
Your child should be interacting with other people in most of the following ways:
- Follows two-step related directions without cues (such as “stand up and push in your chair)
Teach a Child to Follow Directions
- Takes turns and plays cooperatively
Teaching Social Skills to Preschoolers
- Relates personal experiences through verbalization
- Separates from primary caregiver easily
- Frequently practices conversation skills by talking to self
- Begins dramatic play, acting out whole scenes
- Shows frustration if not understood
- Expresses ideas and feelings
Self-Calming Strategies for Children
Literacy/Book Skills
Your child should be using books in most of the following ways:
- Begins to pay attention to specific print, such as the first letter of his name
- Recognizes logos and other environmental print and understand that print carries a message (knows that the golden arches mean “McDonalds”
- Identifies some letters and makes letter/sound matches (such as knows that “s” says “sssss”)
- Participates in rhyming games (such as recognizing that duck and buck rhyme although they may not be great at this yet)
- Talks about characters in a book
- Likes to “read” stories to herself and others
- Protests if an adult changes the story
- Produces some letter-like forms in scribbles that look like letters
- Is developing phonological awareness and pre-reading skills:
The Ultimate Guide to Phonological Awareness and Pre-Reading Skills
Concept Development
Your child should have an understanding of most of the following concepts:
- Follows quantity directions of “empty” and “a lot” (such as “which one is empty” or “which one has a lot of candy?”
- Follows equality directions of “same” and “both” (such as “which two are the same?” or “give me both apples”)
- Understands “next to”, “beside”, and “between”
- Identifies colors (points to the correct color when you name it, like “show me blue”)
- Matches one-to-one (can match two items that are the same)
- Points to the object that is different than the others
- Uses position concepts such as “behind”, “in front”, and “around”
Vocabulary Development
Your child should have a vocabulary of about 1600 words. We don’t recommend you try to count all of them, this should just give you a rough estimate!
Questions
Your child should be able to use questions in most of the following ways:
- Answers a variety of questions, including “yes/no”, “what”, “who”, “where”, “why”, “how”, “when”, and “how many” (as long as there are only a few things)
- Asks “what”, “where”, “when”, “how”, “whose” and one-word “why” questions
- Asks “is” questions (like “what is this?” and “is she crying?”)
Listening Skills
Your child should be doing most of the following listening skills:
- Attends to name being called from another room
- Understands most simple questions pertaining to his/her activities and environment
- Begins to learn from listening
More Information
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Hi there.
Thank you for the article. My 4 year old uses “her” instead of “she”….interestingly, she does use “he”. Is this normal and is there a way to teach her to use he proper pronoun besides example?
Thank you. Susan
That’s very normal! All of those pronouns are confusing to get straight. Most of the time when correcting that type of error, I will just repeat what the child said back the correct way with an emphasis on the corrected word. For example, I might say “yes, SHE went to the store”. Hopefully, once your daughter hears this enough she will start to understand the pattern. If the child I’m working with doesn’t pick up on it from that, I will have them practice repeating it back to me and practice a little more intentionally.
My son has pretty much all this down, he is very smart but has a problem with saying ‘ me ‘ instead of ‘ I ‘ how do I help him overcome this?
Try telling him what language he can say instead. For example, if he says “me want that”, your script is “you can say, ‘I want that'”. Exaggerate the “I” when you say it. You can also play games where he needs to say an “I” sentence for each turn he takes. For example, if you’re playing candyland, have him say “I got green” or “I got blue” for each turn. Just keep working on it and you’ll get it. Good luck!
My daughter will be turning 4 in two
Months. She talks everything but make some mistake like instead of he she says she and instead of him she says her. And few more grammatical mistakes sometimes not always. But my biggest concern is she is still not able to explain the story pharases by Pharases or sequences of the details of incident . So I just want to know is it a concern.
Hello! I can’t tell you what’s going on with your child since I haven’t worked with her directly. If you’re concerned, I suggest seeking help from a speech-language pathologist in your area or your child’s doctor.
Just curious, how much information can you tell a 4 year old at a time, before they are just not following what you are saying? Ex. We are going to (store), and you will stay in the truck with (parent). I will be gone 5 minutes.
Should a typical 4 year old be able to follow all of that? I’m never certain whether or not my child is?
Hi. My son is already 4 years old and he hasn’t speak yet. What’s the best way to do?
Hi, Ar-
We are not able to make a diagnosis for your son. But, you may want to get in touch with this doctor to see what he/she recommends. Also, you can check this post out from Carrie.
My Grandson is turning 4 in 2 months, he has had a Speech Therapist for about 2 yrs now. My concern with his Therapist is that she is to playful with him my Grandson she’s her as a friend and has not learned much. I myself help him with flash cards he has learned his letters numbers and has learned to say short sentences. I hear his Therapist wanting to do occupational Therapy but I don’t think that’s needed. How else can I help my Grandson if the Therapist is not helping.
Hi, Diana-
I am sorry you are having these concerns about your grandson. Unfortunately, we cannot make a diagnosis about the specific needs of your grandson. However, you may want to your grandson’s doctor to see what types of recommendations they could make.
My son just turned 4 last month.He has trouble with the /l/ /sp/ /sl/ sounds. Instead of love he will say “wuv” .. Instead of spider he will say “fider”. Also, instead of slide he will say “fide”.
Is this normal or should I enroll him in speech therapy. He is understood by strangers about 85-90% of the time.
hi, my son is exactly the same he is 4 next week he cannot say R or L so the l is replaced with F Fider instead of spider etc, and the R sound is W. his brother I called Riley to which he calls him Wiley. is this normal? or would speech therapy be recommended?
my grandson will be 4 in September. he is still hard to understand most of the time. if you ask him what is your name he will repeat the word name. he doesn’t seen to understand questions.
Hi, Cindy-
Here is a link to a resource page for what types of speech and language skills a 4 yr old should be able to master. If you need additional help, please email us at speechandlanguagekids.com.
Hello. Thanks for the very informative article! When do you children learn how to form the “th”? sound? My 4 yo cannot yet do it. Thank you!
Hi, Beth-
Here is a link to a resource that shows speech and language skills for 4 yr olds. Also, I found this article about how to teach language sounds to children that may help.
My son has difficulties with pronouncing L words. . He will pronounce ‘La’ as “wah”. I try to get him to mimic me by saying LA LA LA LA. But he seems to have difficulties. Any suggestions.
Hi, Robyn-You can check out this link on Carrie’s site for some possible suggestions to help your son: https://www.speechandlanguagekids.com/?s=%2Fl%2F. Please let us know if you need anything further.
Iam so happy that I found your web site! Thank you for sharing all this information. I feel I now have a plan that is going to help my grandson.
You are more than welcome, Patty! Please let us know if you have any questions that we can help answer regarding your grandson.
My daughter will turn 4 in 2 months. She has a very hard time saying the r, l d, and g sounds. Because of this its very very hard for even me to understand what shes saying much of the time. With every other skill mentioned here she is on target and is very expressive. I mean she has a lot to say but so hard to understand. Is this normal? Can i expect these errors in speech to resolve on thier own?
Hello! Thank you so much for reaching out. Unfortunately, we get a ton of questions every day about how to solve specific speech/language problems. Since we have such a small staff, we aren’t able to answer every question that comes through on the website, social media, or via email. If you are a parent, we suggest you reach out to a local speech-language pathologist who can work with your child directly and answer your question.
If you are another speech-language professional, we have created a membership where we pay a full staff to answer questions like this on a regular basis. We would be more than happy to answer your question inside the membership program. We’re able to answer more questions in here because we have a full library of questions that we’ve already answered so our staff can either link you to the answer if it exists, or write you a custom response if needed. We’d love to see you inside the membership!
Click Here to Become a Member: https://www.slpsolution.com/pediatric-signup/.
This website is so helpful! Thankyou for this!
I have a 4 year old who says all words, sounds everything but only says them in 2 words like “want car” and not the complete sentences.
I am really worried why isn’t he progressing towards sentences when he knows all the words.
Any help on this?
Hi! Here is a link to Carrie’s resources on Sentences: https://www.speechandlanguagekids.com/?s=sentence.
My 4 years old can not pronounce the letter K
Hi, Marlen-I did a quick search on Carrie’s site for /k/. Here is a link that may help: https://www.speechandlanguagekids.com/?s=%2Fk%2F.
Please let me us know if you need anything else.