3-4 years

This is a guide to how children develop speech and language between 3 and 4 years.

Children at 3 to 4 years will usually be actively learning language and asking many questions.

Children develop skills at different rates, but by 4 years usually children will:

• Listen to longer stories and answer questions about a storybook they have just read.
• Understand and often use colour, number and time related words, for example, 'red' car, 'three' fingers and 'yesterday / tomorrow'.
• Be able to answer questions about ‘why’ something has happened.
• Use longer sentences and link sentences together.
• Describe events that have already happened e.g. 'we went park.'
• Enjoy make-believe play.
• Start to like simple jokes.
• Ask many questions using words like ‘what’ ‘where’ and ‘why’.
• Still make mistakes with tense such as say 'runned' for ‘ran’ and 'swimmed' for ‘swam’.
• Have difficulties with a small number of sounds – for example r, w, l, f, th, sh, ch and dz.
• Start to be able to plan games with others.