Speech Therapist Breaks Down the Sounds Your Kids Should Master by Every Age

Wondering if your child’s speech sounds are on track for their age? Here’s what a speech and language pathologist has to say about it

While learning to talk is often a fun time in a child’s life, it can also be stressful, as parents find themselves wondering if their children are progressing at the right pace and meeting the right developmental benchmarks. But thanks to a speech and language pathologist on TikTok, we now have a much better idea of the speech sounds kids should be mastering at every age.

Moira, a speech pathologist with Rooted in Language, posted a video explaining how kids develop their language skills when they’re young.

“Let me first start by saying that we should not expect perfect articulation in kids in those first several years of life,” she said. “Between the ages of one and three, it’s very typical for many sounds to be produced incorrectly. In other words, a developing talker will make consistent substitutions for sounds and words. Kids do this because they’re substituting easier sounds for complex ones. It’s all part of learning how to control and make those finite, discrete, articulatory movements in the mouth.”

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She continued, “For a typical developing child, the number of substitutions they make will naturally decrease as they age. They kind of clean up on their own, so to speak. And the most articulatorily complex sounds are generally corrected last, as you might expect. So, parents, you should expect perfect or near-perfect articulation of all speech sounds by about the age of six. My personal rule of thumb is by a child’s fourth birthday, their speech should sound about 98% correct, allowing a little extra time for “R” and “TH.”

So with that, here are the speech sounds Moira says kids should have down pat by each age. She notes that these are what 95% of kids should have mastered by the time they turn each of these ages, so keep in mind that kids will develop these skills gradually and at different times, loosely around these guidelines.

By age 2, kids should be able to make “p” sounds.

By age 3, they should be able to make “b, d, t, m, n, ng, k, g, f, y, h, and w” sounds.

By age 4, “s, z, ch, j, sh, v, and l” sounds.

By age 5, “r, th, and zh” sounds.

What if your kid isn’t hitting these speech sound benchmarks? Moira notes that if they aren’t nailing them, don’t be afraid to ask for some guidance and possibly consider speech therapy. It’s fun, and kids these ages typically make fast progress and then have no other speech or literacy issues later in life.