About this activity
Six short words for the three alveolar sounds: dog, net, tap, den, nap, tin. All are made with the tongue tip at the ridge behind the top teeth, and they differ from each other only in voicing and in whether the air goes through the nose — which makes them a natural group to work together.
How to use it in a session
Show the shared placement first. All three sounds put the tongue in the same spot, so a child who can make one can make all three with a change of voicing or airflow. Use a mirror for the tongue tip and a hand on the nose for /n/, since air coming through the nose is easy to feel. Five minutes covers the six words, which makes this a short activity for a young child.
What to listen for
Listen for which dimension is wrong. Ten for den is a voicing error; den for nen is a nasality one, and they need different cues — voicing responds to the throat, nasality to holding the nose briefly and hearing the sound change. Watch tin and den, which differ in both dimensions and are the hardest pair here.
Carrying it home
Dog, nap and tap are ordinary words for a young child. Modelling them clearly and noticing the correct ones does more than correcting the incorrect ones at this age.
Questions
- What ages is this for?
- Kindergarten through second grade, and often preschool.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all six cards play with no login.
- Why group these three sounds?
- Because they share a tongue position. /t/, /d/ and /n/ are all made at the same place and differ only in voicing and nasality, so a child who has one has most of what the others need.