/th/ Medial Flashcards
Conventional medial voiceless th targets at the single-word level.
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
Split at the sound: bath-tub, birth-day. In the compounds this is especially clean, because the split is also a word boundary and gives the child a final /th/ followed by a whole word. Nothing and anything are the harder pair, since the /th/ is in the middle of a single word with no natural break. Five minutes covers the ten.
Cueing ladder
Start at the top. Add support one step at a time.
- IndependentShow the card and wait 3 seconds for the student to say it.Log as correct
- Visual cuePoint to your mouth, or show the mouth picture for /th/, before the student tries again.Log as cued
- Verbal modelSay the word; the student says it right after you.Log as cued
- Placement cueTongue tip peeks out between your teeth. Blow air gently over it: voice off for 'think', voice on for 'this'.Log as cued
Adjust it
Drop to syllables ('thah' and 'thoo'), or use fewer cards.
Put each word in a short carrier phrase with no /th/ in it or mix in /th/ words from another position.
Matching IEP goal
Given picture cards, Student will produce /th/ in the word-medial position in single words 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
Ten words with the voiceless /th/ in the middle: birthday, bathtub, nothing, anything, bathroom, marathon, toothache, healthy, panther, toothless. All are two or three syllables, since a medial sound needs a word long enough to have a middle, and several are compounds — bathtub, bathroom, toothache — where the /th/ sits at the join.
What to listen for
Listen for the sound weakening rather than being replaced. Between two vowels a /th/ often arrives with insufficient tongue protrusion and comes out closer to an /f/ or a /d/. Watch marathon and panther, where the target is in an unstressed syllable and carries the least force in the word.
Carrying it home
Birthday, bathroom, nothing and healthy come up in ordinary days. Asking a family to listen for one word at a predictable moment — bathroom at bath time — gives them a task they can keep.
What's in this activity
- birthday
- bathtub
- nothing
- anything
- bathroom
- marathon
- toothache
- healthy
- panther
- toothless
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- Second through fifth, usually after initial and final /th/ are stable.
- Do I need an account?
- No, all ten cards play free in the browser.
- Why are compounds easier?
- Because the split is a word boundary. Bath-tub gives the child a final /th/ followed by a familiar word, both of which they may already produce — nothing has no such natural break.
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.