5-7 Years

This is a guide to how children develop speech and language between 5 and 7 years.

Often by 5 or 6 years, children have good communication skills. They are better at using language in different ways e.g. discussing ideas or giving opinions.

Children develop skills at different rates, but beyond 5 years, usually children will:

• Focus on one thing for longer without being reminded.
• Rely less on pictures and objects to learn new words.
• Use their language skills in learning to read, write and spell.
• Learn that the same word can mean two things, such as 'orange' the fruit and 'orange' the colour.
• Learn that different words can mean the same thing such as ’minus’ and ‘take away’.
• Understand feelings and descriptive words like 'carefully', 'slowly' or 'clever'.
• Use language for different purposes such as asking questions or persuading.
• Share and discuss more complex ideas.
• Use language in a range of social situations.