/th/ Medial — Spelling
Articulation · Grades 2–5 · 10 cards
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 into parts before building. Bath plus tub, tooth plus ache, tooth plus less — writing the two known words is far easier than spelling ten letters in sequence, and it is the strategy that transfers. Marathon and panther are the two that do not decompose and need to be built syllable by syllable instead.
Cueing ladder
Start at the top. Add support one step at a time.
- IndependentAfter building each word, the student says it aloud. Wait 3 seconds.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 word 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
The ten medial /th/ words — birthday, bathtub, nothing, anything, bathroom, marathon, toothache, healthy, panther, toothless — as a spelling task. Derived from the flashcard deck. Six of the ten are compounds or built with a suffix, which makes this as much a morphology exercise as a spelling one.
What to listen for
Watch whether the student uses the compound structure. A child who writes bathroom as two known words has a strategy; one who spells it letter by letter is doing more work than necessary. Notice healthy, where health plus y involves no spelling change, and toothless, where tooth plus less is equally clean — both are good demonstrations of morphology making spelling easier.
Carrying it home
Ask which two words are inside bathroom or toothache. It takes five seconds and it makes a long word into two short ones the child already knows, which is the whole reason morphology helps with spelling.
What's in this activity
- birthday
- bathtub
- nothing
- anything
- bathroom
- marathon
- toothache
- healthy
- panther
- toothless
Questions
- How does this differ from the flashcards?
- Same ten words, built from letters. Most of them are compounds, which makes the spelling a morphology exercise as much as a phonics one.
- Is it free?
- Yes, no account needed.
- What grades is it for?
- Second through fifth, for students working on /th/ and on multisyllabic spelling.
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.