can your pre-schooler say "th" as in "the" or "that"?

[VodkaAndTonic]

My DD1 (aged 3.5 yrs) does not say "th", instead, depending on the word, she says:

• dat (for that)
• sanks (for thanks)
• Kaffy (Kathy)

How usual is this at her age?

Not sure whether to consult a SALT, yet or let it take its course and hopefully correct itself in due course.

FI: we are a bilingual family living abroad and the nursery she goes to is not English-speaking so no-one professional has picked up this mistake yet. But I have noticed and some family members (the English ones) have made some (gentle) comments.

completely normal. Ds is 5yo and he and most of his classmates struggle with this.

I wouldn't expect her to be getting the hang of it for a while yet.

also 'y' as in 'yellow' ('lellow' is still quite common) is difficult and 'r' is something ds still can't get the hang of, still using 'w' instead (and again something that seems normal amongst his classmates).

Completely normal. DD (3.5) says 'f' for 'th' and 'y' for 'l' and 'r'. The words are very clear apart from that and we can always understand what she's saying. I think it's quite normal for them not to get the hang of it till they're 5-6-ish.

Yep. Normal. DS (5) used 'f' for 'th' and no matter how much I tried to teach him it correctly, he didn't pick it up until very recently in school with the use of Jolly Phonics.

DD is 3.1 and she would say 'de' for Th as in where is de cat gone Mummy.

Sankyou (thankyou)
Kassy (kathy)

She has a huge vocabularly and quite complicated sentences but the pronunciation is still developing. Sounds very normal to me.

Agree it's very normal. Ds1 (5) says 'd' for the. He can say that now. Haven't even noticed what 3.5yo ds2 is saying but I'm pretty sure he can't say it at all.

My dd is 4 and bilingual and also in a nursery that is her other language her 'th'
We get 'Tank you' are lacking and I have been told not to worry it will come SHe has had the odd problem with 'rrrr' as well. We will be starting on phonics soon so will see how it goes.Also her vocab in both languages is far more extensive than that of her classmates with 1 language!

My ds is 2.9 and has only just started saying 'th' properly. My friend's 4 yr old still says 'dat' instead of that. Normal I think.

My DD was "taught" this in reception - predictably she went a bit nuts on it and talked about "theathers" and things for a while. She got the and that around the same time - she's in Y1 now and it is just starting to come naturally in other words

DD1 is 5.3 and only got the hang of this about 6 months ago. DD2 (now 3.3) started out with only 2 consonants in her lexicon. Everything she said started with a T or D. Slowly but surely other consonants have arrived but she's still missing a few e.g. she can't say c (so refers to a tat instead of a cat). She uses f or d sound instead of th, which i think is pretty common. I'm pretty sure it will sort itself out but if she gets to around 5 and it hasn't resolved then I might seek some help. I lisped until about 5 or 6 and my mother arranged speech and drama lessons for me (not sure if there were SALTS back then) which soon helped me.

nelly my friends daughter had the t and d speech which she has corrected without help since starting school this year.

OP sounds fine to me my ds 5.9 still says acause, rend, amind me!!! Children who are bi lingual apparently can have speech delay but in actual fact sounds like your dc is doing well.

DS is 3yo and has been saying 'the' correctly for a while. I think we are just lucky his speech is excellent for his age (though he's not so great at other areas of development like potty training for example). They all get the hang of these things eventually. Don't worry.

A friend of mine consulted a speech therapist about exactly this when her ds started school at 4.4. She said that 'th' is usually the last sound kids master and many kids aren't able to do it until around 5 years.

DD is a bit hit and miss with it - she is 4.7. DS is 6.5 and "got it" some time during reception at school.

Dd doesn't, she is 4.She spoke early and is pretty verbal.

We have had some success teaching her r/w recently. And she can occasionally do a 'th' with lots of help. So yes, think it will come in time. Quite normal (I hope).

DD can't do r/w properly. But tbh neither can DH (34) so I'm not worried about that one.

DD1 doesn't usually say 'th' as in thank you; sounds more like 'sank you'.
We are also a bilingual family with lots of french people around us. To me the 'th' like an 's' is so typically french, that I taught dd to pronounce it, which is really quite easy. Just show her that her tongue needs to be on the front of her teeth when she starts the word and not behind.

DD can say thank you perfectly well if I ask her to, but she usually doesn't and I rarely insist (she is 5).

The Caroline Bowen link above is right.. Caroline is like a God to SALTs. So not to worry.. at all! (I am a SALT).

My DD is 4.5 and has only recently started pronuncing it properly. Like thesecondcoming's DD she now replaces every 'f' with 'th'so we have thlowers, goldthish, uncle thrank etc.

My DD is 2.9 and can sometimes get it right - for example "what's that?" but that's due to mimicking (?spelling) the way I say it. The rest of the time it's a "d", "s" or "f" sound for "th".

Oddly, she uses a "y" sound instead of an "l" so says "jeyee" for jelly, and she has "yegs" not legs, etc.

Oh yes, when I think of how dd used to talk... y for j, umlellala for umbrella etc. And now ds who says moomy and des for yes...

Oh, I miss it. I don't want them to speak 'properly'.

I second the previous statement.
Caroline Bowen is a god to SaLTs, I too am a SaLT.
'th' and 'r' are the last sounds to be gotten, usually between 5-7yrs, and sometimes never depending on your accent. My husband still says 'vat' and 'fanks'.
It is also not something most NHS units will treat because it doesn't affect intelligibility and even with these pronunciations your child is completely understandable to all those around.
If you become concerned your NHS SaLT team will see you and assess but are unlikely to treat unless these are additional sound problems or low vocabulary or language difficulties. You can seek help from a private SaLT, but don't pay anyone until at least 5yrs, I would say 6/7 yrs because these sounds usually resolve on their own at school when kids get heavily into linking phonic sounds to letters in reading and writing lessons.

DD also started her life abroad and for a long time could say both 'TH' sounds (THat, THanks) at the start of words, but in the middle of words she couldn't and would say, eg: bruh-huh for brother, ano-huh for another.

When we moved to the UK when she was 4.6, it slowly faded, I guess she heard more examples of the sound being said properly by native speakers.

Since she started school in Sept, she has started mispronouncing the word 'the', pronouncing it as 'Vuh'... I think she must have misheard the teacher when they were taught the phonic, because in normal speech she would pronounce it fine, and would just mispronounce when reading!

I wouldn't worry about it. It will sort itself out, just a bit more slowly than for children surrounded by English.

Ds is 3y4m and has been speaking from 11m and talks in very long sentences etc but still says /f/ for 'th' and /l/ for 'y' and says things like 'twowsers' for trousers. Am not overly worried.