Phonological Process — Stopping
Cards targeting stopping of fricatives.
Session summary (SOAP)
Stays on this screen. Nothing is saved or sent.
Mark a card Correct, Correct with cue or Incorrect and the summary writes itself here.
How to run it
Let the misunderstanding do the teaching. Ask for sun, hear ton, and respond to ton — the breakdown is what makes the difference worth producing, and it works better than correction. Show the contrast physically too: a fricative can be held and a stop cannot, and asking the child to make a long sound rather than a short one is often the cue that unlocks it. Eight minutes covers a subset properly.
Cueing ladder
Start at the top. Add support one step at a time.
- IndependentThe student says the word on the card; you point to the one you heard. Wait 3 seconds.Log as correct
- Visual cuePoint to the part of the word that changes between the two cards.Log as cued
- Verbal modelSay both words slowly, stressing the difference; the student repeats the target word.Log as cued
- Placement cueContrast a long, airy sound you can hold, like a snake's /sssss/, with a short popping /t/. Hold the long one on the card.Log as cued
Adjust it
Listen first: you say one of the pair and the student points to it, before they say any.
Use each word of the pair in a sentence, so the difference has to survive at speed.
Matching IEP goal
Given minimal-pair picture cards, Student will produce fricatives without stopping them in 8 of 10 opportunities across 3 consecutive sessions, given no more than a visual cue.
Send it home through the parent portal →About this activity
Fourteen pairs contrasting a fricative with the stop that replaces it: sea and tea, sip and tip, sock and dock, sun and ton, fan and pan, fig and pig, four and pour, van and ban, vase and base, zip and dip, zoo and do, shop and top, shoe and two, thin and tin. A child who stops fricatives is saying the second word of every pair when they mean the first.
What to listen for
Watch which fricatives are affected. Stopping usually hits several at once — /s/, /f/, /v/, /z/, /sh/ and /th/ — and a child who stops only /th/ is showing a normal developmental pattern rather than a phonological process. Notice whether voicing is preserved: van becoming ban keeps the voicing while fan becoming pan keeps the voicelessness, which tells you the child is substituting precisely rather than randomly.
Carrying it home
Pairs like sun and ton, or shoe and two, come up in ordinary talk. Asking which one the child meant, when both are possible, gives them the same feedback the therapy relies on without any correction.
What's in this activity
- sea / tea
- sip / tip
- sock / dock
- sun / ton
- fan / pan
- fig / pig
- four / pour
- van / ban
- vase / base
- zip / dip
- zoo / do
- shop / top
- shoe / two
- thin / tin
Questions
- What ages is this for?
- Kindergarten through second grade, where stopping is being addressed as a phonological pattern.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all fourteen pairs play with no account and no card.
- What is stopping?
- Replacing a fricative — a sound you can hold, like /s/ or /f/ — with a stop, like /t/ or /p/. It is typical in toddlers and becomes a target when it persists past the age most children have outgrown it.
Use this board with your caseload
With a free account, every correct, cued and incorrect mark is saved to the student and scored against their IEP goal, with the data written up for you. Assign it as home practice through the parent portal.
Track progress freeFree for SLPs. No card, no trial clock.