How do you teach kids correct speech?

[MartyBartfast]

Not as in regional pronunciation or variation, but both DSs say eg. “smoove” and “viss” instead of smooth and this. Neither DP nor I do it, nor any friends/relatives. I don’t want to give them a hang up about speech by correcting them every time they say anything, but it’s just wrong and don’t want them to grow up still doing it (they’re 10 and 8 now, which suggests we’ve somehow let it slip through for way too long).

Thanks x

If they're not hearing it anywhere, maybe they just haven't learned to say the 'th' sound. Show them how to stick their tongue between their teeth to say it. Children generally love any excuse to stick their tongue out.

My advice is to gently model the correct pronunciation. For example, my ds says viss and vat. I show him how to stick his tongue out to make the th sound. We practise a few times in a low key way.

Most young kids do this, it's not because they are hearing it somewhere. I really wouldn't worry if they are still quite young. If they are maybe 4 or older, just tell th, no its "THis" or "smooTH". It won't gave them a hang up. Say it in a nice way. Children don't take offence tk things the way adults do.

My dp does this, he pronounces three and free pretty much the same (which has caused actual confusion once or twice)and now ds does it too. According to his mum he was badly tongue tied as a baby and spoke very late- ds was just the same. I don't know what to do either really. School only seem to care that it doesn't effect his spelling of the words (which it doesn't). I also find it very difficult to say to dp that I want to correct something in ds's speech that he himself does all of the time. It's like ds just can't make the 'th' sound properly. My next port of call will probably be the SALT team.

Don't worry too much. Just gently correct them and they will learn it.
Dd1 struggled with for/four and it came out like thor the Norse god! It's gone now

@nevernotstruggling Yes, we have the four/Thor thing too!

Thanks all, will just do gentle reminders through the day and see if that works. One did have tongue-tie (but was snipped at a few days old) but the other didn’t. Will try the tongue-sticking-out thing too!

How old was she never? Ds is 7. Dp is in his forties and just never grew out of it!

Can they say ‘th’ all? You need to check they can I think.

SmacM I presume they’re hearing it from friends.

Oh ignore me about friends, I read it as relatives!

I was thinking of starting a similar thread. DS(5) says dis, dat, free (three) etc. He's reading a bit and I noticed he said 'the' correctly when reading but still 'duh' when just talking. I've tried to influence him over the years but get told off by DP who says it's his local accent and I'm being an awful snob for trying to correct him. Apparently everyone ever born and bred in the area is the same (find that hard to believe).

Anyway, I'm gently correcting him when I hear these words and hopefully it'll filter down past his stubbornness to avoid doing anything I suggest, in time.

I’m surprised school didn’t pick up on this when they were much younger.

My 10 year old seems to have forgotten T exists and he’s dropping them everywhere and it sounds horrible. I’m just reminding him when I hear him but I’m sure they will drop back in at some point. 9 year old seems to speak fine so far but I know my 2 older boys went through (15 year old still) of speaking horribly. 19 year old seems to have corrected himself and speaks really nicely now and I’m sure 15 year old will too, it’s all the speaking with the ‘mates’ seems to have to be done like you’ve lost all your brain cells - he grumbles and mumbles drives me round the bend.

We had superstar speech games when my DS1 was about that age which does have games for this; however, TH-fronting (replacing th sounds with other fricatives like f & v) can be part of a regional dialect to the point even when in speech and communication therapy in some areas (as my DS1 was), they won't test or give much advice about it.

It used to really wind me up, because I can hear it, but no one else in my house can and nothing I've done has really changed it. The tongue sticking out thing in a mirror is a common recommendation but it did nothing with mine but make them cranky that it's making them stumble over their words. It has softened as they've got older though, or maybe I've just got used to it.

'th' is a difficult and, in the global scheme of things, fairly unusual sound. My bilingual 5yo dd, who only hears me (RP) and audiobooks/children's programmes (various accents but all pronoucning 'th') as sources of English, does this. It is also a regional variation, and one that's on the sharp end of a lot of snobbery. For this reason, and because language is a personal and sensitive thing, I would be wary of 'coming down too hard' on it, but there is no harm in showing them where their tongue needs to be.

(Oh, and she hears her considerably older brothers, who don't do this, but I couldn't tell you whether they did at her age)

It’s not regional to where we are, but yes, wary of any snobbery aspect. They can say “th” and often do but in the wrong place (like before, they’ll sometimes say Thor for four, thork for fork). It’s very cute now, but I’d like to correct it before they’re fully grown men.

My mum would just bluntly correct me, then when my brother came along (I’m 6 years older) she told me it was rude to correct people when I did it to him

DH pronounced TH words with an F, eg ‘free’ instead of ‘three’ when I first met him. He brought it up (I didn’t try to correct him because we’ve established that’s rude ) and said he genuinely couldn’t hear the difference. He now notices it and can make the TH sound.

It can take years to master all the sounds and words properly. The important thing is that they hear the correct pronunciation regularly. I don't correct my children, but I will repeat what they've said IYSWIM?

We're facing this problem now my 4 year old is learning phonics! I've been very careful to correct him if he ever drops a T in something like Water (like war er) which he very rarely does but I hadn't appreciated how he only ever said free (3) viss (this) etc until the phonics sounds cards/books came home. He can now make the 'th' sound and thinks very carefully about it when reading out loud but still uses f/v in us everyday speech and now gets confused the wrong way round and sometimes reads a 'f' as 'th' . Just going to keep correcting as and when I can. He lisps on S's as well and I've got no idea if he'll grow out of that or not (his 2.5 year old brother who talks loads but has just started saying words with the s sounds seems to be lisping too - neither me nor DH do so not sure why they both are)

I think the th/f mix up is a feature of some accents - London maybe?? I’ve known adults say these ‘wrong’ and it was just their accent.

I once taught a boy (y4) who wrote ‘dis’ and ‘dat’ no matter how many times he was corrected he never remembered it should be this and that. But he said dis and dat too! It was tricky cos when I spoke to his mum about it I realised she also said d instead of th...so her son was just speaking as he’d learned. She should probably have had speech therapy as a child to correct it.

With a much younger child, you would just repeat the word back correctly but at 10 and 8 you can correct them without it upsetting them. Sadly SALT are so very stretched you will get nowhere with them for a small issue like this. If you attend a drop in session when they are able to resume them, you may get given some exercises to do.

I modelled how to make the th sound and corrected my 7 year old every time she went wrong. She was in tears. I felt awful. It took a week. She fanks me for it now though .

My adult daughter is the only person in our entire family who pronounces the letter h as “haitch” instead of “aitch” . I flinch every time I hear it . She must have picked it up at school all those years ago, along with the nits and the threadworms!

When my kids drop the t in words like potato, or get lazy with their words, I just repeat the word properly. And carry on with the conversation.
I love the cutesy words like Lellow instead of Yellow because that's just cute and my DD will grow out of it, but when they say things like water and don't pronounce the T I'll just repeat it properly. If that makes sense.

We are from Yorkshire though so a lot of it is regional dialect!

I’d practice making the th sound with them. Do it in the mirror so they can see how the sound is formed.

You can play “minimal pairs” games where you have pictures of objects that are the same except for the target sound - so a three and free, thought and fort/fought, thin and fin, thaw and four (twinkl have minimal pairs pictures to download). Practice hearing and saying the sounds by having a pair and getting them to pick the one you say, or they say one for you.

I’d also just repeat back to them correctly “I want smoov peanut butter” “ok you want the smooth one”.

You don’t have to give them a hang up, but involve them in learning to say the sound - tell them you’ve noticed they find that one tricky and you’re going to do some practice together.