Top tips for speech sounds
Indigo Childcare Group
1 min read
Aug 23 2025
Clear Speech is the final building block of communication. Children typically do not have the full range of adult speech sounds until around age 7.
Most children in the early years will continue to mix up or miss out sounds in words for some time — simply model the correct sounds for your child to hear and continue chatting and playing together.
Children develop at their own pace.
If your child is still developing their other building blocks of communication, clear speech may not yet be a focus.
See our resources on our website for more information about all the Building Blocks of Communication for your child’s age, or watch a video.
Communication Building Blocks
- Be understood about 50% of the time by familiar adults.
- Use a limited number of speech sounds, including p, b, t, d, m, n, w, alongside vowel sounds.
- Miss out the ends of words.
Be mostly understood by familiar adults.
- Usually use p, b, t, d, m, n, w, alongside vowels.
- Start to develop k, g, f, h, s – although these may still be substituted with other sounds.
- Shorten longer words, e.g. “nana” for “banana”, “pider” for “spider”.
- Be mostly understood by familiar adults.
- Still have difficulties with some sounds such as: s, v, l, r, sh, ch, j, th.
- Be easily understood by adults and peers, with only a few substitutions remaining.
- Use most sounds effectively, though r, ch, j, and th may still be tricky.
- Reduce consonant blends, e.g. “slide” becomes “side”, “truck” becomes “tuck”.
Top Tips for Supporting Speech Sounds in the early years include:
Model back the correct version of any words where your child misses out or mixes up the sound, without drawing negative attention or forcing your child to correct, e.g. child: ‘the tat is seeping’ adult: ‘yes, the cat is sleeping, he must be tired’ with emphasis on modelling the correct sounds.
Modelling speech and language while following your child’s lead works better than putting pressure on your child to correct what they are saying or sounds they might not be ready for yet.
Building your child’s awareness of sounds in general through Phonological Awareness activities
These might include:
- Sharing nursery rhymes
- Talking about rhyming words together in books
- Making your own bag of child-safe objects – take turns to take an item out and think of a word that rhymes – can also be a made-up word! Chat about how rhyming words sound the same at the end.
- Clap out the syllables of words
- Search for your child’s first sound of their name in picture books and find objects around the house that start with this sound and others.
If you have concerns about your child’s speech and language, have a chat with your child’s Health Visitor, Nursery, GP, or you can contact most NHS SLT services directly by finding out your local SLT Advice Line details for some support.
