/th/ phonogram mispronounced

[ReadingMama1214]

We are slowly working through the phonograms and are on the "th" ones. As an initial sound, my daughter pronounces it correctly and she can make the sound in isolation. However, at the end of a word she sounds it out correctly, and then when she says it she replaces the /th/ with /f/

 

So she'll sound out b a th and say "baff", "maff", etc.

 

She's only 4, so I am assuming that she will outgrow it. I plan to keep moving forward and making sure that I pronounce it correctly. We do go over how to move our mouth to say the /th/ sound, but she can say it correctly in isolation.

[Entropymama]

Don't sweat it, she'll figure it out. My kids each had things they mispronounced but they figured it out when they started reading fluently. 

[Jess4879]

My almost seven year old still does this, though my girls mastered it around 5, I think?  According to speech development milestones, the "th" sound can be mastered anywhere between 3 1/2 & 8 years old.  :) 

[Tanaqui]

That sound takes a long time for children to master - and you can hear that in many dialects, it's always realized as some sound other than an interdental fricative (interdental - you say it with your tongue at or between the teeth, fricative - you only slow the airflow a little to make this sound). Stereotypically, New Yorkers tawk like dis, and I often see Brits writing in eye dialect about "youf" or how people "fink". If it persists past age six or seven and it isn't a common feature in your dialect, you can get speech therapy for this. Even if it IS a common feature, it's so very stigmatized that you may wish to teach her to say it in the standard fashion anyway, simply by teaching her how.

 

At any rate, it's common for children to be able to produce specific sounds or words or grammatical constructions in isolation, but fail to do so when speaking. They're still learning. You must have seen this when she was smaller - perhaps she'd say "I runned Mommy!" and you'd correct her "You ran" and she'd say "Yeah, ran. I runned all the way here!" or the like?

[UCF612]

My 6 yo does this too mostly when he's writing something. He's pretty good with it when reading. He also spells it /v/ when doing the second sound of th.

[featherhead]

Yeah, I think that's normal at 4. My four year old is currently working on her "r" sound. I don't always correct her, but she has come to recognize it often when she says a word wrong. It's so funny listening to her talk sometimes, as she is trying so hard to get the "r" sound. She will get it in half the words, and not the other half, and then turn a "w" sound into "r" because she is trying too hard, lol.

[rutheart]

I personally did the same thing. In kindergarten, I had one day of speech therapy and that was enough to fix the issue. In my case, the issue was more noticeable due to my name, which sounds like a dog bark when incorrectly enunciated.

Ruth

[Tsuga]

Four is well within the range of normal.

 

If I had to choose between toilet training and the "th" sound (or "th", "s", "r" and "v", as the case was in our family), I'd take toilet training any day. You can't have it all, lol.

 

 

[EndOfOrdinary]

My son's two front teeth do not line up correctly which makes this sound near impossibke. It hasn't slowed m down any. In a year or so braces will fix it. For now, we just work in enunciating.

[Meg4]

Yes, she is on the young side.  You should see it pretty good around 5 at the beginning of words maybe 6 or even later when occurring at the end of words. 

You can show her /f/ is produced while "biting" the lower lip and blowing... and /th/ is more of the placement of the tongue between the lips and then blowing.. It might help her to feel the difference.. But, I wouldn't stress over it yet. Hth. 

[ReadingMama1214]

Yes, she is on the young side. You should see it pretty good around 5 at the beginning of words maybe 6 or even later when occurring at the end of words.

You can show her /f/ is produced while "biting" the lower lip and blowing... and /th/ is more of the placement of the tongue between the lips and then blowing.. It might help her to feel the difference.. But, I wouldn't stress over it yet. Hth.

That's what I figured. She can do it at the beginning of the words, but not the end. We are working on demonstrating how it's formed with our mouth.