Pennington Publishing Blog

Voiced and Unvoiced /th/

Teaching the voiced and unvoiced consonant digraphs in the context of beginning reading instruction and reading intervention can be tricky, especially the voiced and unvoiced “th.” Speech therapists and ELL teachers insist that the differences are critically important; reading specialists and special education teachers tend to ignore these as “distinctions without differences.”

As a reading specialist, I usually stay on the practical “whatever works” side of the ledger. However, with respect to this one issue, I think my speech therapist and ELL colleagues have won me over.

My programs focus on older students ages 8–adult, who struggle with reading, and many have problems making the phoneme (speech sound) to grapheme (print) connection. What’s preventing these students from making this connection? Almost always, it’s inaccurate or inconsistent recognition and production of the speech sounds. If you can’t say ’em, you can’t read ’em and you certainly can’t spell ’em.

Regarding the production of the voiced and unvoiced “th,” both are classified as fricative sounds for speech articulation. With the fricatives, “air flows, but friction is created by small separations between articulators” (Moats 2017).

I’ve spent countless training sessions trying to hear and feel the differences in the “th” sounds in beginning, medial, and end positions. I’m not the only one who has problems hearing these sound distinctions, but most of us can hear when a student mispronounces one of them. Here’s the best help I’ve found yet regarding how to differentiate the sounds:

To know if your voice is turned on, try this simple test. Put your hand gently over the front of your throat and breathe. Do you feel anything? No, you shouldn’t. Now, put your hand on your throat and say “ah”. Feel the vibration? That’s because your voice is turned on.

Now, let’s try it with one pair of sounds: S and Z

Put your hand on your throat and say s-s-s-s-s. You shouldn’t feel anything.

Now, put your hand on your throat and say z-z-z-z-z. You should feel the vibration because your voice has to be turned on to make the Z sound.

Your mouth, teeth, and tongue should be in exactly the same position for saying S and Z; you just need to turn your voice off for the S and on for the Z.

Lisa Scott
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/4426340

The exercise works better than the other methods I’ve tried and I love the terminology “your voice has to be turned on.” So much better than “voiced-unvoiced” or “voiced-voiceless” for students (and reading specialists). Now, of course Lisa (and others) has picked the easiest pairing of sounds (/s/ and /z/) to demonstrate and the single consonants seem easier than the consonant digraphs, but starting with what is most clear usually does makes sense.

Now that we understand the difference between sounds with the voice turned on and off, we need to know how to teach them. I’ll provide a few pointers in the context of beginning reading instruction and then follow up with a recommendation for students in reading intervention classes, SPED, and ELL students.

Decoding

Of course, we introduce the voiced and unvoiced consonant digraphs separately. We provide example words and help students blend and segment the sounds. However, we do have a problem. In most phonics (sound-spellings) instructional sequences, we first teach short vowels and single consonants and then turn our attention to the consonant digraphs. And we stick with single syllable words. This certainly has proven the right instructional order over time, but it does limit our example words significantly and, thus, our practice of such in decodable text. Notice, we even have to dip into the King James English to broaden our lists.

The voiced “th_” often is sounded at the beginning of structure (or function words) and is produced by activating the vocal chords. Once you get your teeth and mouth in position, you turn on your motor in your throat with the “th” sounds in these words:

Voiced Decodable “th_” Single Syllable Words with Short Vowels and Single Consonants

this                  that                  them                then                 thus                 than

Voiced Decodable “th_” and Single Syllable Words with Long Vowels-Consonant-Final e

their (long a “ei” spelling)       though (long o “_ough” spelling)

thou                 thee                 thy                   these                those                thine

Voiced Decodable “_the” Single Syllable Words with Long Vowels-Consonant-Final e

clothe              breathe            bathe               teethe

Voiced Non-Decodable Single Syllable “th_” Words

the                   they                 there

The unvoiced “th” is produced by pushing air through mouth and out the lips. There is no motor sound with the “th” sounds in these words; it’s the air that makes the sounds. A “th” sound at the beginning of content words is usually an unvoiced sound.

Unvoiced “th_” at the Beginning of Content Words

*think               thought            theory             thirsty

Unvoiced Decodable Single Syllable “th” Words with Short Vowels and Single Consonants

thin                  thud                 path                 with

Unvoiced Decodable Single Syllable “th_” and Words with Long Vowels and Silent Final e

thief                 thigh                thieves            theme

Unvoiced Decodable Single Syllable “th” Words with Long Vowels, Consonant-Final e, and Consonant Blends

thank               thing                think                growth

Strategic Word Analysis

• Teach students to guess the voiceless “th” in meaning-based words, such as theme, thaw, and both.
• Teach students to guess the voiced “th” between two vowels, such as *bother, worthy, mother, and python
• Teach students to guess the voiced “th” in grammatical words, such as that, they, and then.
• Teach students to guess a voiced “th_” at the start of syllable when it is followed by a short vowel sound. Only a few words, such as thin, thick, and thought are exceptions.
• Teach students to guess an unvoiced “th_” at the start of syllable when it is followed by a long vowel sound. Only a few long vowel words, such as the, these, those, their, and though are decodable exceptions. Add on the sight word there and the King James thou, thee, thy, and thine (if you must) and this is a good generalization.
• Teach students to guess an unvoiced “th_” at the end of a word, such as *month, strength, warmth, teeth, and fifth
• Teach students to guess an unvoiced “th_” in the middle of a word before a consonant, such as *month, bathtub, faithful, and worthless
• When in doubt, guess the unvoiced pronunciation. Other than the list above, most all “th” words are “sound off” pronunciations.
• Other than the low utility long vowel, consonant-final e decodable words listed above, guess an unvoiced “_th” at the end of a syllable.

*Examples from The Ultimate Guide for English Learners

*****

The Science of Reading Intervention Program includes digital and print sound walls to demonstrate proper mouth position and speech articulation. Additionally, each of the phoneme-grapheme animal cards includes mouth formation pictures to aid proper speech articulation.

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every student in reading intervention needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

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