Last night I decide to tackle something my kids do with their speech. They pronounce their “TH”s as “S”s. It’s not a big deal really, but they are old enough that they should be able to pronounce it correctly.
CootieBoy was talking about the bunny in his classroom at daycare, and called it “Sumper.”
“Can you say THUMPER?” I asked him.
“Sumper!” he said cheerfully.
I showed him a few times how to make the TH sound by putting his tongue between his teeth as he makes the sound. He practiced (occasionally falling into the “F” sound) and eventually got it.
“Great!” I said. “Now say ‘Thumper’.”
“Fumper!” he said.
CootieGirl came running over. “I can do it!” she cried. “Sumper!”
…
We spent about 5 minutes going over the TH sound, and finally it clicked with CootieBoy.
“Tttthhhhhumper,” he said slowly. I nodded, a big smile on my face. “Tttthhhumper!” he said again!
He spent the next 5-10 minutes just saying Thumper over and over again, TOTALLY proud of the fact that he got it right.
This morning, his first word of the day? Thumper.