This page is all about the 8 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 all English speech sounds correctly:
-/p/, /b/, /m/, /h/, /n/, /w/, /d/, /k/, /g/, /d/, /f/, “y”, /t/, “ng”, /r/, /l/, “ch”, “sh”, “j”, voiceless “th” (like in “thumb”), /s/, /z/, /v/, voiced “th” (like “the”), “zh” (like in “beige“)
Your child’s speech should be understood by a stranger almost all of the time.
8 Year Old Speech and Language Skills #2:
Grammatical Markers
Your child should be correctly using adult-like grammar, including:
- Pronouns:
– I, me, you, he, she, him, her, we, us, they, themHow to teach the pronouns “he” and “she” - Possessive Pronouns:
– My, mine, your, yours, his, her, hers, our, ours, their, theirs - Other pronouns like:
– myself, yourself, herself, himself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves - “-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”
- Helping verbs such as “to be”, “to do”, and “to have”, including contractions (such as “that‘s my ball”, “I’ll do that”, and “I have two”)
Literacy/Book Skills
Your child should be using books in most of the following ways:
- Identifies letters, words, and sentences
- Has a sight word vocabulary of 100 words
- Understands what is read
How to Improve Reading Comprehension
- Creates rhyming words
- Reads grade-level material fluently
How to Improve Reading Fluency
- Expresses ideas through writing
- Prints clearly
- Spells frequently-used words correctly
- Begins sentences with capital letters and attempts to use punctuation
- Writes a variety of stories, journal entries, or notes
More Information
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I have an 8 year old LAC and his speech and language skills are very poor. He has had therapy but does not seem to be improving. He can say very, very few basic words correctly for example:
Twenty = chennie
Seven = seddon
Play = pray
Blue = boo
Mirror = midda
Smell = mell
He cannot be understood by strangers and even family struggle to know what he is saying a lot of the time. He also cannot speak in proper sentences or have a conversation. Instead of saying ‘where is she?’ He will say ‘Where are her?’ What do we do with him now?
Hi, Jane! Since I’ve never met your child, I cannot tell you specifically what will be best for him. I would speak with your child’s therapist about what to work on next or look for a second opinion if you feel you are not connecting well with your current therapist. I can point you to a few of my pages that may help though:
Speech Sound Resource Page:
http://www.speechandlanguagekids.com/speech-sound-resource-page/
Grammar Resource Page:
http://www.speechandlanguagekids.com/grammar-resource-page/
I hope that helps!
Hi my daughter is 8 years old an talks very clearly but she cannot express her feelings clearly . She can do only one way talking clearly but if you start discussing on some topic with her she cannot reply properly. She is in grade 3 and still cannot write stories properly. Is lack in writing skill is a result of language development?? First we thought she is dyslexic but she is not . We already did her dyslexic test also.
Hi there!
Many children with language disorders also have trouble talking about their feelings and putting together stories/narratives that make sense. I definitely recommend looking for a speech-language pathologist in your area who can evaluate your daughter to check for language delays. The speech-language therapist at your child’s school should be able to help with this!
I have 8 year old son who has ADHD, Tourette and expressive speech disorder. He can’t express his thoughts properly,. He will talk whatever he wants but can’t hold the conversation. Due that he has poor social skills and being in grade 3rd he is having problem in compherhensions. He can’t even write journals or short stories. His study is suffering. School refusing to provide him speech therapy. My only worry is Will he ever grow out of it. Very scared worried for his future. Thank you.
I’m so sorry to hear about your son’s troubles! Keep in mind that just because a child doesn’t qualify for services through the schools, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t help available. Try looking into outside services through a private speech therapy clinic in your area!
Mam my son is 8 yrs he is having less clarity in speech.He can individually pronounce all sounds except/ r /.In discourse he will be getting problems .My therapist told it will improve but only slight difference is seen . Sometimes it is good and it becomes worst
Hi, Ramya-
Here is a link from Carrie’s site pertaining to the /r/.
Hi , My kid is 9 years old boy and he stammers on fews words and feels in difficulty in uttering them. On few words he makes efforts and speak them 5 -6 times and problem is he repeats words.
Can you please help on right speech therapy material for him
Hi, Sunil-
Here are a few resources that you may want to check out: Middle School and stuttering.
My son had what we thought were speech issues but it turned out he had a substantial hearing loss that contributed to his speech issue. He could not tell the difference between high-frequency sounds like sh – f – p – th. They just dropped out of his hearing. After 2 year of SLP, our pediatrician suggested we re-test his hearing. BAM, hit it. If you child had very high fevers or needed powerful antibiotics as an infant, get their hearing checked. It may be the root of a speech, reading, writing, behavior issues. Good luck!
My son can anderstand but the problem is he can’t speak letters he know to sang abc but when I show the letter he can’t recognise it.
Sorry for my statement Im not good in English.. I’m Filipino
Hello, Kevin! 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!
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