The Flowering Fives – The school journey is just beginning!
Half way to ten! Can you believe it? You have watched your youngster blossom into a personality and a self that is unlike any other. Your child should now be stating his or her opinions, thoughts and feelings on various topics – even when you don’t want to hear it, or more embarrassingly, others in public to hear it!
Your youngster will be starting their school journey and beginning to learn to read. They will probably be asking you “What’s that sign say?” all of the time! You must be proud, relieved and of course a little bit nervous. Parenting is not smooth sailing, but you’re doing an awesome job.
Speech:
- Between the ages of five and six, your child should be mastering the sounds /l/, /r/, /s/, /v/, /z/, /ch/, /sh/ or /th/.
- Their speech should definitely be understood by all listeners and starting to sound almost adult-like.
Using Language:
- Your five year old should be using comparatives such as “big, bigger, biggest”, although will still be grasping these concepts. Errors which can be expected might include “good, gooder, goodest”.
- Your child should have between 2,200 and 2,500 words although we don’t recommend that you try and count them!
- He or she should be able to make verbs into the regular present tense (for example, ‘running’ and ‘dancing’), make nouns into regular plurals (such as, ‘apples’ and ‘oranges’) and using pronouns (such as ‘their’ and ‘himself’)
Understanding Language:
- “First, middle” and “last” are positional concepts which should be competently followed by five years of age.
- Your five year old should be able to follow complex instructions such as “Before you go to the car, get your bag and pack your lunch box”.
Pre-Literacy skills:
- Between five and six, your child should be building the skills that will enable literacy. These include the ability to rhyme, blend syllables (that is, ‘um-brell-a’ makes ‘umbrella’), and letter-sound correspondence (that is, to know that ‘d’ makes a ‘deh’ sound).
If you have any queries about your child’s speech, language and literacy development, feel free to call SpeechEase Speech Therapy on 0423 334 144 to have a chat about your concerns and book in an appointment.
