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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