07/17/2025
🐢🐇🏁This should be no secret by now, but I LOVE inventing play-based activities and games to target minimal pairs. Here’s one of my go-to activities—inspired by The Tortoise and the Hare—to target the phonological pattern of fricative simplification in which the voiceless ‘th’ sound is substituted with ‘f’. (Parents of kids under 6, this one should be very familiar to your ear!)
🎲 How it worked:
Each player rolled the die to move 1, 2, or 3 spaces around our racetrack (but only if they pronounced “three,” not “free!” 😉). Along the way, racers had to stop at checkpoints to contrast tricky minimal pairs like:
🔹 fin vs. thin
🔹 Fred vs. thread
🔹 frill vs. thrill
🔹 fought vs. thought
We used a mini turtle and rabbit figure to act out the race—and let’s just say, the hare (aka, yours truly!) may have taken a “strategic nap” under a tree to let our tortoise take the win. 💤🐇🌳
Of course, each racer wanted to come in “first” 🏁—but along the way, they also had to deal with a little “thirst” 💧! These words made perfect minimal pairs for practice in a meaningful, story-based context. We made sure to stop and hydrate our racers whenever they felt “thirsty,” reinforcing that important voiceless TH sound!
This activity combined movement, story play, and meaningful speech sound practice all in one, with over 70 productions of “th” achieved in just 15 minutes—a win for all! 🏁✅
Minimal pair cards by
