Talking 7-11 years
Talking 7-11 years
This is a guide to how children develop speech and language between 7 and 11 years.
Talking and understanding words is a gradual process. Children develop skills at different rates but beyond 8 years, usually children will:
- Use language to predict and draw conclusions
- Use long and complex sentences
- Understand other points of view and show that they agree or disagree
- Understand comparative words e.g. ‘it was earlier than yesterday’
- Keep a conversation going by giving reasons and explaining choices
- Start conversations with adults and children they don’t know
- Understand and use passive sentences where the order of the words can still be confusing for younger children e.g. “the thief is chased by the policeman”.
How to support your child
- Good communication is two-way and requires good listening skills. To help a child, you will need to demonstrate good listening skills yourself. Make sure that you have time for this in your day. You may need to explain words that a child still does not know.
- A child's vocabulary will be growing. Help them to understand new words they learn by talking about their meaning. Make sure they are not afraid to ask if they don't understand a word. If you don't know the exact meaning of a word - look it up in a child-friendly dictionary such as Collins Co-Build.
- Just by having good conversations with children, you are supporting their language. So, talk to them. Ask them how their day at school was and how their friends are. Hopefully they don't need too much encouragement to talk. Try to encourage conversations rather than just you doing the talking.
Things to look out for
At this stage, children should have well-developed skills in their talking and understanding of words. A child who struggles with their understanding of words might show the following behaviours:
- They may struggle to join in group conversations. This is because there is too much language.
- They may find it hard to make up stories. This will show in their written work as well as talking.
- Their stories may be muddled, making them difficult to follow.
- They may find it hard to learn and understand the meanings of words.
- They may struggle to understand language about things in the past or future.
- They may find it hard to make predictions.
- They may find it difficult to understand language where the meaning isn’t clearly stated e.g. when the conversation involves new concepts or involves people or objects not present and visible to the child.
- They may be struggling to learn at school.
- They could find it hard to understand what it is they are supposed to be doing, even though they have been told.
Helpful resources
