Introduction

By 5 years old, a child can have quite well developed language skills. He or she is usually aware of the sounds that make up words and can identify words beginning with the same sound, for example, "Mummy made magic marshmallows", and words that rhyme. They might play rhyming games and sing out words that rhyme, such as bat, cat, fat, hat, mat.

A child will typically be able to understand and combine words to form active sentences, for example, "The cat chased the dog", and will begin to understand passive sentences, for example, "The cat was chased by the dog".

When a child describes a picture, they might mix up who is doing what to whom. They might also have trouble understanding pronoun references, for example, who 'she' refers to if you say, "The woman told the last girl to arrive that 'she' was late".

A child may still have problems with the rules being learnt, particularly when the rule isn't followed, for example a child may identify the plural of house as houses, but they might think the plural of mouse is mouses instead of mice.

The more the child plays with friends and as they learn to recognise the written word, so they will automatically correct themselves.