Four to five years

Most 4 year olds use longer sentences and can describe an event. They understand how things are different, such as the distinction between children and grown-ups. Most 5 year olds can carry on a conversation with another person.

Select the image below to hear a 4 to 5 year old speaking and the button below to find out more.
5years
  • typical speech at 5 years
  • can use many descriptive words spontaneously with both adjectives and adverbs.
  • knows common opposites for example big and little, hard and soft, heavy and light
  • has number concepts of 4 or more
  • can count to 10
  • speech should be completely intelligible, in spite of articulation problems
  • should know his age
  • should have simple time concepts for example morning, afternoon, night, day, later, after, while
  • should be using fairly long sentences and should use some compound and some complex sentences
  • speech on the whole should be grammatically correct