Levels of speech development of preschoolers: characteristics and definition of the level

2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 00:21

Usually, by the age of 5-6, with normal development, the child masters the full phrasal speech, masters the levels of a complex sentence. By this age, the child already has a fairly voluminous vocabulary, he easily uses the norms of grammar, vocabulary, word formation, and there are no difficulties with the reproduction of sounds. But before that, the baby goes through several stages of speech development.

4 levels of speech development in preschoolers

It takes a while for the child to speak. Gradually, diligently, he will have to master the stages of language cognition in terms of phonetics, grammar, vocabulary and word formation. The levels of speech development of children have been described and studied by many experts in the field of pedagogy, linguistics and speech therapy. For example, Professor T. B. Filicheva identified 4 levels of speech development.

• 1level - up to 2-3 years,
• 2 level - from 2-3 to 4 years old,
• 3 level - from 4 to 5 years old,
• 4 level - from 5 to 6 (7) years.

Their brief description is given in the table below.

Age	Vocabulary	Level of speech development
up to 2-3 years	up to 500-800 words	Speech is babble, often gestures and facial expressions replace words. Distortion of words with the omission of several syllables, substitution and rearrangement of sounds and syllables. Phrases are weakly expressed.
3-4 years	up to 1900 words	Speech is situational, sentences are simple. Parts of speech: nouns, verbs, pronouns. Does not pronounce sonorous, problematic G, K. Hard, whistling and hissing can be softened.
4-5 years	2000-2500 words	Begins to actively use adjectives. Composes rhymes and consonant words. Interested in the sound of speech. Often uses only the direct meaning of words. Uses diminutive suffixes in word formation. Uses conjunctions, including subordinates. Can express qualitative and quantitative relations of objects, phenomena and actions. The syllabic structure of the word begins to be realized by ear. The pronunciation of sounds is clear, with slight distortion - R.
5-6 (7) years old	4000 words	Speech is coherent and often expanded, using complex sentence structures. Declension, change intimes, births, numbers continue to be mastered. The syllabic structure is deciphered visually. Speech is constructed correctly grammatically and in meaning. Begins to understand figurative meanings of words. Sounds are pronounced correctly.

Characteristics of the levels of speech development can help in determining the stage of language acquisition by a child. Each level corresponds to a certain psychological age with the parameters of perception of the phenomena of the surrounding world. After all, the inner world of the child is inseparable from his speech. The levels of speech development of preschoolers are detailed below.

1 level of speech development: features of psychological perception

Children of the 1st level of speech development are distinguished by their emotional perception of the world, they are not yet logical, and their speech is situational. The younger the child, the more he reads the reaction to the world in its facial, gestural and sound expression in adults. This means that if an adult dropped a toy, raised his palms to his cheeks and exclaimed “Oh, I fell!”, then in the same situation the child will do and say the same thing. But if not an object falls from the hands, but a person, then the baby will not react in the same way - this is a different situation for the child.

Grammar, phonetic features of level 1

For conversation, children of this level use onomatopoeia supported by facial expressions and gestures, babbling and vague sentences built on its basis, with fuzzy distorted pronunciation. Also hard to perceive:

• categoryelementary prepositions (with, under, before…);
• grammatical differences in plural or singular;
• generic differences (running - running - running);
• verb tense (does, will do, did);
• degrees of comparison of adjectives (strong - strongest).

The first level is far from the perception of the syllabic structure of the word. Children of the 1st speech level are characterized by a small amount of everyday words, uttered in a babbled manner, truncated. For example: "amot" - a hippopotamus, "iska" - a hare. You can often hear non-existent words in children of the initial speech level - designations of some objects, feelings, actions. For example: "abuki" - shoes. Such words can even denote several objects. For example: "kesya" - sweets, sugar, honey, favorite bear, fun. Here the word "kesya" denotes both the subject "candy" and that which has a connection with it through associations of qualities: sweet, tasty, bringing joy, a state of pleasure.

Children at this level do not use morphological phenomena to build grammar. This means that the “phrase” consists of root words without the use of prefixes, suffixes and endings depending on the situation. Such “phrases” can only be understood in the context of a particular situation, which the child tries to describe with a lack of vocabulary with gestures, facial expressions, exclamations, onomatopoeia.

Level 1 Speech Development Tips

In this case, no correction is required. Level 1 is valid up to 3 years. Until the age of three, a childlife experience is not rich, he is not yet able to consciously look at the variety of manifestations of the world around him. That is why it is required to talk more with the child, to say the names of objects, states of nature and man, trying not to distort the words. Let the baby not immediately master the correct pronunciation, but he will definitely remember it.

2nd level of speech development, features of psychological perception

Children begin to use language to communicate with their peers. With adults, the conversation is started with a cognitive purpose, and children try and want to be understood, and adults try to observe various norms of the language when answering a question. With peers, the conversation is built differently. Kids show each other objects, phenomena, actions and express their opinions on this matter. And they don't care about being understood. At this age, what the child says to the child is by default perceived as heard and understood. The conversation can be conducted in different forms, depending on the emotional perception of the interlocutor. It can be a game, an explanation or an emotional outburst. Also, the child often accompanies with speech any of his actions. At the third level of development, more and more words of active and passive stock appear in the child's speech, the rudiments of understanding the grammatical properties of the language continue to form.

Grammar, phonetics and word formation at the 2nd level

Vocabulary at the 2nd level of speech development increases. There are more and more communication opportunities. Playing sounds stillquite distorted, grammatical forms are not clear. The child masters forms with stress on the last syllable better. Speech means at this level become more permanent. Words are already appearing that denote not only objects, actions, but also their properties (white, fast, beautiful). There is not yet a large volume of words denoting color, shape, size, so children often try to replace them with familiar words. For example: instead of "a huge ball" - "a circle to the sky." Phrasal speech in its true sense is already emerging.

The child expands the active vocabulary (words used in daily speech) and passive (a set of words known to the child). Being at the second level of development, the child already begins to understand grammatical forms, makes not always successful attempts at declension in cases (nouns, adjectives) and tenses (verbs). The grammatical change of form by the child is not yet perceived as a reason for semantic transformation, and therefore form formation does not play a role for the speech creation of the child at this stage. For example: instead of "the cat was walking down the street" - "the cat was walking the street." Prepositions at this stage are often used erroneously, with semantic substitution. For example: instead of "climbed under the table" - "climbed into the table." Unions and particles are practically not used.

The pronunciation of children of the 2nd stage of speech development is still far from correct. Soft sounds are confused with hard, deaf with voiced. Poorly pronounced hissing, sonorous, whistling. For example: "Zoya" - "soy", "cat" - "koska", "tree" - "deevo". Often there is a rearrangement of syllables in the words: "monocle" - "nomocle","birch" - "winch". Also, the syllabic composition can be violated not only in the order and quality of reproduction, but also in quantity. For example: "gate" - "orota", "towel" - "pot".

Supporting a child at the 2nd level of speech development

This level is typical for the normal speech development of children 2-4 years old. This time is good for replenishing vocabulary and improving the ability to build a phrase. It is very important that the child hears grammatically and phonetically correct speech. You need to read poems and fairy tales with him, try to remember the fairy tale from the pictures in the book, and at the same time be sure to suggest the adjectives that are necessary in the context. For example: instead of “a mouse ran in” - “a gray mouse ran in”, “a little mouse”. You can immediately explain that “norushka”, because it lives in a mink, it will be easier to remember a new word. Also, if the child says “the cat came running”, it can be explained that the cat is a girl, so she “ran in”. At this level, the child first of all masters the grammatical essence of speech, so he needs unobtrusive prompts in case of incorrect use of word forms, stress.

3rd level of speech development: psychological features

This level is characterized by greater independence of judgment. A child of 4-5 years old continues to gain experience of getting to know the outside world. He still asks questions to an adult, but now he has a need to express his judgments about the world around him. When reasoning, the child waits for the adult's reaction to his judgment, trying in this wayhow to determine how true it is. At the third level of development, rhyming is observed, attempts to compose a melodic phrase, a short story from simple sentences. The child becomes more sensitive to the manifestation of language possibilities in different areas of life.

Grammar, phonetics, word creation, semantic content at the 3rd level

The vocabulary of a child at the 3rd level of speech development is replenished, it already includes words that name the qualities of objects, actions and phenomena. At this stage, all parts of speech can be traced in the speech of children, but sometimes their functions are not meaningful. The child expresses himself in sentences, sometimes even complex ones, if the category of the function of conjunctions and allied words is mastered. If not, then when you try to express yourself in a complex sentence with a causal relationship, you get a similar construction: “I didn’t draw, … I lost my pencil.”

Difficulties at this stage can still be caused by grammatical change in the form of a word and word formation. But the temporal category of the verb, the case change of nouns, adjectives and numerals are already realized. The gender category has been mastered, but difficulties may arise if you do not know which gender a particular word belongs to. For example: “Today I saw such a beautiful snowstorm, it circled, circled!”. Here you can see the ignorance of the kind of the word "blizzard". Accent errors persist. For example: “poured water.”

During this period, there may still be difficulties with the pronunciation of individual sounds (hissing, sonorous, whistling). Syllabic division is recognized by ear by many children, but only as an intuitive rhythmicdivision of the word.

A child may already be able to make up stories from a picture with a brief description of the qualities, shape, size, color of objects.

Level 3 language development work

A child at this stage is usually well able to listen to short stories of children's literature, fairy tales, poems. Also, 4-5-year-olds already like to retell what someone has read aloud. Reading will help enrich vocabulary and learn the algorithm for grammatically correct construction of phrases and sentences. Retelling, especially from pictures, is already an attempt to apply grammatical, derivational and lexical norms in practice.

Inventing poems with two or four rhymes, role-playing conversations on behalf of toys or fictional characters - all this will help the child figure out how to build speech depending on the situation. To work out the classification of words according to one or more features, working with cards depicting animals, products, furniture, things, seasons will help.

For a better mastery of the morphological side of the language, the child needs to pay attention to the endings associated with gender, case, tense. Make it clear that there are parts of a word that serve to form many words.

At level 3, you can already enter simple tongue twisters. The time for tongue twisters will come at level 4.

4th level of speech development: psychological features of perception

This level usually falls on 5-6 years. The child is already preparing to go to school. He interacts a lot with peers. Able to carry on a conversation with an adult, withenjoys telling stories from memory. Begins to try to read and write. He likes to have his own opinion and try to defend it not just with emotional outbursts, but also with arguments.

Grammar, Phonetics, Vocabulary Level 4

The judgments of a child of the 4th level of speech development are logical and framed in complex sentences. Grammatical constructions are harmonious, but sometimes have distortions. The child uses all parts of speech, is not fully aware of their purpose, masters declension quite well in speech practice, changes in numbers, genders, tenses, begins to use degrees of comparison.

The sound system may still be imperfect, especially when changing milk teeth. The speech is already quite harmonious, but there may be an indistinct pronunciation of sounds, due to which the effect of the blurring of the word is recognized.

Syllabic division is already perceived visually, which signals the child's readiness to begin mastering the phonetic basics of the language.

Child learns many new words, often trying to guess their meaning from the context. As a result, the semantic content of the word is not fully mastered, which will later become noticeable when constructing one's own statements using these words. For example: "The plane took off high into the sky and flew to the moon!" The child has learned only that the plane flies, but does not know the full characteristics of its properties.

Classes with a child at the 4th speech level

At the fourth level of speech development, the child's vocabulary is rapidly replenished. This is due to the expanding circle of communication and the development of new activities. It is important during this period to explain the exact meaning of new words. Classes with an explanatory dictionary will not interfere. This stage closes the levels of development of preschoolers, so all areas of the language should be worked out on it as much as possible.

What does ONR mean

If the development of a child at any age does not correspond to the described levels, then it is considered that he has OHP - a general underdevelopment of speech. The reasons may be different:

1. Speech defects in people close to the child.
2. Psychological trauma or bad family climate.
3. Poor he alth of the child, diseases of the internal organs.
4. Severe head bruises followed by loss of consciousness.
5. Severe infectious disease.
6. Incorrect congenital or acquired structure of the speech apparatus.
7. Congenital or acquired defects in hearing and intelligence.

If hearing, innate intelligence and speech apparatus are intact, then OHP can be eliminated quite quickly, but in any case, the help of a specialist will be required: a speech therapist, neurologist, psychologist, sometimes an orthodontist or speech development teacher.

Special schools have been set up for children with more severe speech delays. They are general education, but with special programs for the development of speech in children with OHP.

In fact, the classification of stages given in the articleinitially characterized the levels of speech development of children with OHP (general speech impairment). But it can be safely applied to the characteristics of the speech of children with normal, timely speech development. The difference is only in age. Ordinary children master all levels by the age of 5-6, but children with severe DSD will be able to reach level 4 at best in the secondary school class.

Classification of levels, of course, is not able to reflect the whole picture of improving speech skills. There are special tests to determine the level of speech development.