Saying F instead of TH

[jarralass]

Hi,

I was just looking at some recent messages, and there was one about speech, and it got me thinking the number of times my DH and I correct our son for not saying TH. Example, one, two, free.......frow the ball....

Yet he says "with" no problem and Thursday ok. Anyone had similar issue, and does it just stop or will he always say it?

Thanks

[madhattershouse]

piprabbit are you from Essex too?
Soufend, berfday...etc. I know many who sound like this..sadly my 4yo still does this and sounds just like her dad!

[piprabbit]

How did you guess? .

ATM my 3yo can't distinguish between F, TH or S sounds, oh well.

[emlu67]

My DS 4 1/2 does it the other way round - using TH instead of F e.g. one, two, three, thor, thive...

He was a very late talker but has a good vocabulary now and this is the only problem but if I ask him to say words correctly he gets very upset. He will be starting Reception in Sept and the teacher knows a lot about speech problems so will mention it to her when he starts.

[sparkle12mar08]

It matters a lot and first impressions do count. I know full well that how people speak does not necessarily reflect their level of education or their intelligence, but accents and speech patterns do give us clues about people. And missing out or mispronouncing letters is hardly a good thing. It does make people sound less educated than they may well be. My 5yo also occasionally mixes up the ff/th sounds, though he is getting much better and I gently correct every single time I notice it. It's not helped by the fact that my husband can also neither say nor hear the correct 'th' sound.

[buteman]

I posted here earlier for the first time about this problem some seem to have. Unfortunately, without intending to advertise or promote any business, I provided a link to what I thought was really helpful and free information to help all those who suffer from this problem and those who wish to help them.
I explained that I had yesterday heard a man who could not seem to say 'death' although he could clearly say 'this', 'those' or 'them'.

He said instead 'deaf' which as I am sure you appreciate, could upset both deaf people and those who had just had a family member or friend die.

I received an email informing me that my post had been deleted. As I had not intended to offend anyone or promote another site I have asked if my link could just be deleted and the rest of the text re-enabled.
I feel quite passionately that this is something which was virtually unheard of when I was younger because children were corrected gently by parents, friends and teachers when they were small children. This simply consisted of consistently and repeatedly saying something like 'No you say '......'

I was so impressed by the method the link showed which seems to be a really sound method of helping even adults to rectify this problem I copied the text and saved it on my computer. I have 5 young grandchildren and want to be sure they can be helped if needed as I know that it can often give the impression that the person is uneducated or unintelligent when I think this is rarely the case.

Also, if you preview any post you make it simply says:
"This is a preview of your new message. If you used any links in your post, they should be working correctly in the preview. If your post is correct, click on "Post Message" at the bottom of the page. Otherwise, you can revise your message." so I had not thought I would have any problem with it.

[Elibean]

dd1 said 'de' instead of 'the' and 'wiv' instead of 'with' from early on. She is bilingual (French) so we assumed it was because of that - to start with - but when it was picked up on by her teacher in Y2, I questioned it a bit more deeply.

(I posted at beginning of this thread, well over a year ago!)

She turned it around in a few weeks, with focused practice - and all I did was ask her to say it correctly every time she read with me, which was pretty much every evening. I had to show her how to stick her tongue out between her teeth to do it, but then she was away on her own...no problem.

dd2, who is now 6, has adopted a lisp ('thocks' instead of 'socks') because, I suspect, her best friend - who is older, and very clever - has one

So now we're gently correcting that: I showed her how to keep tongue behind her teeth when she makes the 's' sound, and hey presto.

[EcoLady]

Setting aside all of those who genuinely struggle to pronounce sounds correctly... some children do start to use /f/ or /v/ sounds instead of /th/ as part of developing their own attitude. When teaching year 6, we knew which children to pull up on saying "fir-een" instead of "thirteen". It was a deliberate thing by the child and a very deliberate correction by the teaching staff. We picked up other speech errors, such as "we was going...", or "I done it". It's part of the same attitude and directly impacts on their writing.

[buteman]

Hi All,
Here is the method and please note there is NO promoting of any organization in this.

"Learning the TH Sound All By Itself

I love teaching the TH sound because it is one of the most visual sounds to teach. Model putting your tongue between your teeth while blowing air at the same time. Most children will have no difficulty imitating this action. Then practice this action with and with out voice. Think of it as a loud th and a quiet th. The reason for this is the TH is pronounced with voice in some words like, ?that, this and the? and without voice in other words like, ?thank you, theater and thongs.?

Practice the TH Sound in Syllables

Once you have had multiple successful productions of the TH sound all by itself try adding a long or short vowel to the TH sound. For example, ?they, the, though, tha, thee, thy?? Then try putting the vowel in front of the the sound, for example, ?ath, eth, eeth, ith, uth, oath?? Finally try putting the Th sound in the middle of vowels, for example, ?atho, ethee, ootha, othu?? Which ever syllable combination your child is the most successful with will tell you whether you want to begin practice with words that begin with TH, end with Th or have Th occurring in the middle.

Practice the TH Sound in Words

If your child did did the best with TH following the vowel you would begin practicing words that end in TH like, ?booth, bath, path, north, moth, mouth?? I prefer to practice with a list of at least 20 words. I like to use pictures to make it more fun. Fun ways to use the pictures include making a snake with the pictures with little treats every 3-4 cards, have the child say the name of the picture, if it is correct put it away, if he/she misses the word put it in a pile to practice later. When you have gone through all the words have your child say the ones they missed 5 times correctly before putting them away. You can also play games like memory, go fish, and bingo to keep it fun. You can download the pictures I have created for words beginning with TH as well as words that have TH in the middle and at the end of the word on the worksheets page. Once your child is able to say these words with 80% accuracy or better, try putting them into a sentence.

Practice the TH Sound in Sentences

I use one sentence and have the child insert all their practice words into that sentence. For example the sentence might be, ?They both have a .? In the blank you would fill in ?They both have a bath, They both have a mouth, They both have a north.? Some sentences will make sense and others will not. You can use this as an opportunity to discuss how to make the sentence correct. If you are practicing the TH in the beginning of words you might use the sentence ?That is the .? If you are practicing the TH in the middle of words you could use the sentence, ?My brother wants a ___.? Feel free to make up your own sentences as well.

Practice the TH Sound in Stories

Following successful sentence productions have your child practice the TH sound while retelling simple stories or while reading aloud depending on the ability level of the child. Be sure to follow this outline until you have achieved mastery of the Th sound in all positions of words (beginning, middle and end of words).

Practice the TH Sound in Conversation

Once your child is able to retell stories with good TH production you will find moving the TH into conversation will go pretty smoothly. You may still have to remind your child from time to time but more often you will be pleased to watch them catch themselves and make the correction on their. Before you know it, you?ll forget they ever had a problem with TH."

I hope this is a helpful as I believe it to be.

[Karoleann]

We saw salt for ds1 when he was 5 for the same reason. They don't worry until 7. "th" came without intervention a few months later.

[bruffin]

I only noticed the other day dd 15 cant say th, when she was telling me about a fim called ."four" she was talking about "thor"
DH cant say th either.
Have tried with both of them but neither can say Th.