{"id":822,"date":"2010-10-13T13:47:45","date_gmt":"2010-10-13T19:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mommyspeechtherapy.com\/?p=822"},"modified":"2023-12-04T13:47:44","modified_gmt":"2023-12-04T20:47:44","slug":"how-to-teach-the-sh-sound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mommyspeechtherapy.com\/?p=822","title":{"rendered":"How to Teach the SH Sound"},"content":{"rendered":"

Teaching the “SH” sound may seem a little daunting at first, but I think you will find that with these tips and suggestions it isn’t so bad. In fact, our little ones that struggle with the SH sound in words may have no difficulty at all saying the sound in isolation (all by itself). The fastest way to test for the accuracy of this sound in isolation is to have your child hold their finger to their lips to say \u201cshhhh\u201d. If your child can say the SH sound then your ready to practice the SH sound in syllables. If your child struggles with producing the SH sound clearly don\u2019t worry, we can teach them.

<\/p>\r\n

Sound Elicitation<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

There are a few different ways of teaching the SH sound. You may want to begin with phonetic placement<\/strong>, which is when you teach the child how to position his\/her tongue, jaw, lips and teeth for a good production of the target sound. Or, you may try shaping<\/strong> the sound from another sound. Shaping is when you use a sound the child can already say accurately to teach a sound they are not able to say.

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Phonetic placement<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

A few simple steps to teach the child where to place his\/her tongue, jaw, lips and teeth for a good SH sound include:<\/p>\r\n

    \r\n
  1. Have your child part his\/her lips slightly<\/li>\r\n
  2. Then touch your child\u2019s tongue with a tongue depressor or his\/her toothbrush just behind the tip of the tongue. Have him\/her place the part of the tongue just touched on the roof of the mouth just behind the \u201cbumpy part.\u201d<\/li>\r\n
  3. Next, have the child lower his\/her tongue just a little. You may need to use a tongue depressor or popsicle stick to help your child lower it slightly.<\/li>\r\n
  4. Finally, have your child hold this position, pucker his lips and breathe out through his mouth.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n

    Provided your child has the oral motor capabilities and cognitive ability to follow these instructions this should produce a nice SH sound.<\/p>\r\n

    Shaping<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

    If your child can produce a good \/s\/ sound or a good \u201cee\u201d sound we can shape\/teach the SH sound starting from one of these sounds.<\/p>\r\n

    SH from \/s\/<\/p>\r\n

      \r\n
    1. Have your child say \/s\/ (ssssssssss).<\/li>\r\n
    2. While you child is saying the \/s\/ sound have them pucker their lips slightly and move their tongue back slowly until you hear a good SH sound.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n

      SH from \u201cee\u201d<\/p>\r\n

        \r\n
      1. Have your child say \u201cee.\u201d Then have them say \u201cee\u201d in a whisper with no voice.<\/li>\r\n
      2. While whispering the \u201cee\u201d sound have your child move their lips into a pucker position. This should result in a SH sound.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n

        Moving the SH Sound into Words, Syllables, Sentences and Conversation<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

        Now that your child can say the SH sound follow the steps<\/a> from the post on the Process of Articulation<\/a> for moving that sound from isolation (saying the sound all by itself), to syllables, to words, to sentences and finally conversation.<\/p>\r\n

        Go to my worksheets<\/a> page to download pictures of SH words in the initial, medial and final positions. Practicing these word cards will help your child solidify the SH sound at the word level.<\/p>\r\n

        You may also download an SH rotating sentence in the initial, medial and final positions. A rotating sentence is when the sentence stays the same, except for one word that changes. For example, the sentence may be, \u201cShave the _______ with shears.\u201d The idea is that you can rotate all the word cards you have been practicing at the word level through one sentence. It would look like this, \u201cShave the shower with shears.\u201d Or, \u201cShave the sheep with shears.\u201d In this example you can see that sometimes the sentence will make sense and sometimes it will not. The important thing is that the child is able to memorize the sentence, which allows for independent production of the target sound at the sentence level regardless of the child\u2019s age or reading ability. The other benefit to practicing the sound using a rotating sentence is that you can target language at the same time. The child may say, \u201cYou can\u2019t shave a shower!\u201d Or, \u201cThat\u2019s silly.\u201d At this point you may just agree or open it up for discussion. \u201cWhy can\u2019t you shave a shower?\u201d<\/p>\r\n

        Finally, you may also download simple SH stories targeting the initial, medial and final sound positions. Each story has pictures that allow children of all reading abilities to practice and retell the story independently. Older children also benefit from specifically targeting the SH sound while reading a book of their choice aloud. This gives the child lots of practice in a concentrated setting.<\/p>\r\n

        After your child can produce the SH sound with about 80% accuracy at the word level, sentence level, and at the story level, you are ready to move it into conversation. By this time your child is well aware of how to produce the sound accurately and has the ability to produce it in conversation. The difficulty that may remain is adapting a habitual pattern. Patiently make your child aware when errors are made in conversation. He or she will be able to fix them and move on.<\/p>\r\n

        Please keep in mind that these are basic techniques (as is the case for most of the articles on Mommy Speech Therapy) to get you started in the right direction in helping your child with the SH sound. If you feel your child has other issues which may be affecting his\/her speech, please contact a Speech Language Pathologist in your area that will be able to work with you to be sure your child receives the best treatment and\/or therapy possible.<\/p>\r\n

        As always, I hope this post will be helpful in supporting your children to speak more clearly and help build their the confidence in their language and communication. <\/p>\r\n

        Remember to be patient and to have fun while practicing these tips with your little ones. Best of Luck!<\/p>\r\n

        \r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Teaching the “SH” sound may seem a little daunting at first, but I think you will find that with these tips and suggestions it isn’t so bad. In fact, our little ones that struggle with the SH sound in words may have no difficulty at all saying the sound in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articulation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/mommyspeechtherapy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/sh_sound.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mommyspeechtherapy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mommyspeechtherapy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mommyspeechtherapy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mommyspeechtherapy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mommyspeechtherapy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=822"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mommyspeechtherapy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3210,"href":"https:\/\/mommyspeechtherapy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822\/revisions\/3210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mommyspeechtherapy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mommyspeechtherapy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mommyspeechtherapy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mommyspeechtherapy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}