CC79 - Foundations for Reading and Spelling Part 1 Chatabout Children Podcast with Sonia Bestulic

In this episode of Chatabout Children™ Podcast, we look at the foundations of learning to read and spell with a real focus on preschoolers – children who are from 3 to 5 years of age. This is part 1 of this comprehensive topic and a guide can be found in Sonia’s e-book - 4 Power Tools to Ready your Preschooler to Read and Spell 

Speech and Language Milestones

Learning to speak and communicate is a crucial part of a child’s development because it will help them progress in their early school years in terms of mastering those rules of language.

Even though development will vary for each child, it is important to have a rough guide (or milestones) as to what typical development is and you can ascertain if your child might need a bit more help.

3 years of age


Children at 3 years of age understand more complex directions (2-part instructions), WH Questions (What, Where and Who). Different concepts, and they can sort items into groups when asked.
In terms of expressive language, they are able to say 4-5 words in a sentence and they start to have a conversation with you.
When it comes to play skills, this is the age when they start playing beside other children and start role playing games

4 years of age


Children at 4 years of age children understand most questions about their daily routine, more WH questions (and answer those related to a story they just heard), and they are showing an awareness that words may start or finish with the same sounds.
In terms of their speaking, sentences are longer now, making use of connecting words (and, but, because), they are able to describe or recount something that they had just done, asking a lot of questions, and you’ll also notice lots of concepts developing.
As to play skills, they are now playing in small groups, they are continuing their pretend play and they are starting to play games with simple rules.

5 years of age


Children at 5 years of age understand longer instructions (3-part instructions), starting to understand “before and after instructions” and they understand instructions without having to stop and listen.
They start speaking well-formed sentences understood by most people, turn-taking in a longer conversation, and tell simple stories with a beginning, middle and end.
Play continues to be quite imaginative, they start to negotiate, you’ll find that they include other things — things they haven’t experienced like space.

 Speech sounds


At 4 years of age, a child can say most of the consonant and vowels sounds correctly, and between 4 and 5 some of their pre-literacy skills start to be a little bit reinforced — rhyming words and syllables.
At age 5, they may still have a bit of trouble with the r sound, replacing it with w like “wabbit” instead of “rabbi”. Also, they confuse the th sound with an f sound like “fank you” instead of “thank you”. Another common one is a lisp, where the s goes to a th sound like “it’s thunny outside” instead of “it’s sunny outside”.

A child speaking another language at home (aside from English)


If you speak a foreign language at home, you can still use the milestones I mentioned earlier as a guide and apply to the dominant language spoken at home. But if you are still not convinced, it is best to consult with a speech pathologist about this.

What to do if you are concerned after learning the milestones?


If you are concerned that your child has not reached the milestones we discussed earlier at her age level, then have a chat with your medical professional or family doctor, get the child’s hearing checked or contact your local speech pathologist.

6 practical, easy-to-apply strategies on how to power up your child’s vocabulary


Children between 2 and 5 years of age learn at a really extraordinary pace. They understand and remember words that they may have heard once or twice (warning: be careful with your own language). So a strong vocabulary helps a child to create a mess