My 4yr old has difficulty in pronouncing the letter F; he replaces it with the letter S.?

Question

Hello. I'm currently a stay at home mom. My oldest who is 4yrs old is in pre-K and my two little ones stay at home. My 4yr old has diffulty in pronouncing the letter F; he replaces it with the letter S. Instead of saying four, he says sour, sive, soot. Yet he can say the letter F, but is unable to say words that begin with the letter F. The school has recommended speech therapy, I honestly do not see the need if there is something that I can do at home before I go that route. I am also wondering if this will affect my 2yr old speech as well, because my 2yr old does not want to repeat new words that I introduce to him. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Speech therapy is a really good idea.

My nephew is in the first grade (6 yrs old).  His teacher is really concerned that someone his age never got speech therapy earlier.

You can find speech therapists at local hospitals, human service agencies, and even in his school.

Answer 2

I think your instincts are on the right track.  Children often can't seem to get a letter or two in young childhood but later on, it's just not a problem.  I couldn't say  some words well into my elementary years , like girl and oil, I said gull and oll, but now, my speech is perfect, diction and elocution, I was a trainer for telephone sales with my company, Pan Am World Airways , among other things.

I've had a few children myself who didn't pronounce things '''right''' till they got a little older, best not to make a big deal of it, practice but lightly and smile to let the child know that it really is ok and even normal for many kids.  I believe it is totally wrong to obsess over young children's mispronunciations like so many people do these days.

I had 2 natural born children, then adopted a baby at birth and they are all in their 40's now.  I raised some of my grandchildren at different times, did day care, I was a foster home children's shelter for 16 years, and we adopted 6 children from the ages 0 newborn, 2 and 3 years, and 1 and 2 years old.  Those adopted children are now young adults, the baby is 15 and the eldest child is 21 already.  

We were told to put one of the little boys into speech therapy when he was in K and 1 st grade, and we waited a little while then we did do this through the school and I guess it seemed to help him some.  He speaks very beautifully now and pronounces words properly.  

Don't let anybody make decisions for you with regards to your children.  That's my advice also, make a tape recoding of your child talking.  Kids love to do this and then let him play it back and hear his own voice and show him where the tongue has to go to make the sound you want him to make.

We still have some tapes of the kids when they were little and they just love to listen to them now.  It' s quite fun for all of us and I get to hear the baby talk again, to my delight, it always brings a smile to my face.  And to theirs.

Answer 3

Yes, "F" is a sound a 4 year-old should have, but there is a caveat; if he can say "V", he doesn't need speech therapy and should grow out of it (I seldom tell parents that, since kids don't usually "outgrow" speech problems).

"F" and "V" are "cognate sounds. The "F" and "V" are produced in exactly the same fashion, except "V" is voiced and "F" isn't. "Z" is the voiced cognate of "S", "G" is the voiced cognate of "K", and "D" is the voiced cognate of "T". See what I mean?

If you do decide on therapy, the problem will resolve very quickly. If you don't, use words with pictures, such as "fat" and "sat", then "life" and "list", then "cough" and "toss", so he gets the sound in all positions of words.

Answer 4

lm a Nursery teacher and believe me this is a very common problem....just keep repeating the correct word and your child will soon pick it up. l wouldnt even consider speech therapy. Dont worry about your younger child either. give them both time and space and lm sure everything will work out well

Answer 5

Things like this are pretty normal for a child that age and generally disappear with age and phonics training.  My now-10yo couldn't pronounce his "y" sound at that age - yellow was "hello", etc.  Around the age of 5 or 6 he saw how the sounds worked together and he grew out of it.

I would try working at him at home first - make a little game out of it, just a few minutes a day.  First, let him look at your mouth while you clearly make both the "f" and the "s" sounds, and let him mimic you in a mirror.  Then, pick a sound for the day and see how many things you can each find and say that begin with that sound for 5 minutes (or until he gets tired of it).  Once he's got the sound down somewhat well, branch out with other sounds (ones that he's confident with) and just play.

This will not only help him with the two sounds, but with beginning phonics training.

If, after that, he is still really having trouble with the sounds, you may want to try the speech therapy.  It doesn't sound like he has too severe of a problem, though.

For your 2yo - some 2yo's just plain aren't ready to talk yet.  Some start talking at the age of 3, or even early 4's.  It sounds like it's just not something that he's developmentally ready for.  Just talk to/with him a lot and read to him every day; when he's ready, he'll probably talk your ear off :-)

Hope that helps!

Answer 6

For your 4 year old, keep practicing. Reward him when he does it correctly. A nice great job and stuff. Does his school have tutoring? My sister had kind of the same thing with her, except it was the letters y and w. After tutoring, she was better than ever! I really don't think this will effect your 3 yr old. Good luck:)

Answer 7

Letter pronunciation is developmental.  I recommend finding out if /f/ is a letter sound a 4 year old should have.  I believe it is a sound our speech consultant picks up my 4yr.olds for speech class.  Speech therapy is fun at this age.  Most children are quick to learn their sounds and test out of speech before beginning Elementary school.  I recommend fixing it now rather than later, when he could be ridiculed or labeled. Modeling and repeating back correctly what a child says is the best thing a parent can do.  Introduce new words to your two year old based on his interests. Does he like airplanes, cars, horses, dinosaurs.....  use big words.  I use correct body words like phalanges, clavicle, cranium, nostril and so on.  My 3 &4 's now use them.  They sound so smart and love to use them.  A study released stated that children who are exposed to big words early in life test higher on their SAT's.

Answer 8

I would try the speech therapy and see what comes up.  Something similar happened to my 4 year old cousin. Her name is Lauren, and she used to replace the letter 'L' with the letter 'W'. So, she used to say her name as 'Wauren'. So, I said 'Lauren, repeat after me. Say, 'La-La-La-Lauren". We said it like that so she would get used to saying the letter. Just make a game out of it, like someone else who answered said.

GOOD LUCK

--Mandi

Answer 9

When my daughter started to kindergarten she had a terrible speech defect. She had trouble mostly with the letter S. She was extremely smart, but most people couldn't understand her. Her school had a wonderful speech teacher and after three years she was arded out of the program. Please go to the school and sign him up. It can't do anything, but help.