What are speech sounds? 

Speech sounds are the sounds we use for talking. We use our tongue, lips, teeth, and other parts of our mouth to create different speech sounds. Speech sounds are not the same as letters. For example, the word ‘sheep’ has five letters, but only three sounds: ‘sh’ ‘ee’ ‘p’. 

When do children learn different speech sounds? 

As children learn to talk, they gradually learn to make more and more speech sounds. This means that they cannot say all speech sounds straight away. Some sounds like ‘m’ are easier to make than sounds like ‘th’. The chart below shows the ages that children who speak English can normally say different sounds. 

Children who can’t make these speech sounds at these ages might need extra help from a speech and language therapist. Children may lisp ‘s’ sounds until around age four or five.

Even when children can make a speech sound by itself, it can be much trickier to use speech sounds when saying whole words and sentences! Children often find simpler ways to say words when they are finding a speech sound tricky. Read more about speech sounds here.

The following videos help teach the correct way of saying different speech sounds.

The Story of Mr. Tongue

Mr Tongue is a unique story that includes a set of exercises for lips, tongue and mouth. The story will help the child become aware of the different parts of their mouth including their teeth, tongue and lips. It will also help them to develop the movements needed for speech.