/f/ Sound Speech Therapy: Activities for teaching "f"

/f/ Sound Speech Therapy:
How to Help Children Learn to Say the /f/ Sound

Some children struggle to say the /f/ sound in conversational speech. We don’t typically start working on the /f/ sound in therapy until a child is 4-5 years old as many children still struggle with the sound before that age and will fix it on their own as they get older.

This page will show you how to use an articulation approach to help a child say the /f/ sound correctly. That means you will start by teaching the child to say the sound by itself, like “ffff”, then you work on the sound in syllables, like “fuh, foh, foo”. After that, you work on the sound in single words like “fan, fix, off”, phrases , and then sentences. Once you’ve done all that, then you work on helping your child say the sound in conversational speech.

/f/ Articulation Therapy Kit

No-Prep Worksheets for Teaching a Child to Say the /f/ Sound

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How to Teach the /f/ Sound:

You can download the entire /f/ home program by clicking this button:

Click here to download the free /f/ Articulation Home Program Handouts

Breakdown of How to Teach the /f/ Sound in Speech Therapy:

/f/ in Isolation:Student will produce the /f/ sound in isolation (by itself, not in a word or with other sounds)
/f/ in Syllables:Student will produce the /f/ sound in non-sense syllables
/f/ in Words:Student will produce the /f/ sound in all positions of single words (beginning of the word, middle of the word, and end of the word)
/f/ in Phrases:Student will produce the /f/ sound in all word positions of 2-3 word phrases
/f/ in Sentences:Student will produce the /f/ sound in all word positions of simple sentences

What’s Next?

At this point, you can either move on to work on another speech sound and see if this sound generalizes on its own. Or, you can move on to our“carry-over and generalization” kitwith this sound.

Sample IEP Goal for the /f/ Sound:

Student will produce the /f/ sound in all word positions in sentences in the therapy environment with at least 80% accuracy.

/f/ Articulation Therapy Kit

No-Prep Worksheets for Teaching a Child to Say the /f/ Sound

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About the Author: Carrie Clark, MA CCC-SLP

Hi, I’m Carrie! I’m a speech-language pathologist from Columbia, Missouri, USA. I’ve worked with children and teenagers of all ages in schools, preschools, and even my own private practice. I love digging through the research on speech and language topics and breaking it down into step-by-step plans for my followers.

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SLPCarrie2024-02-19T14:44:46-06:00Tags: Can Be Done at Home, Has a Video, Has Printable Resources, Therapy Ideas|

13 Comments

Emily R.October 31, 2014 at 3:27 pm - Reply
I am working with a child on initial /f/. In spontaneous conversation, she substitutes /b/. With cues, she can produce initial /f/ in single words. However, it does not sound natural. There is a gap between /f/ and the rest of the word. I have her trace a rainbow to hold out the /f/ sound. I verbally cue her to “keep her voice on,” “keep pushing the air out,” and “hold out /f/.” She can do a natural /f/ while tracing the rainbow but is very inconsistent and continues to rely on the rainbow visual. I’ve also done auditory discrimination where she judges my /f/ productions as correct or incorrect (i.e., with the gap). She can usually discriminate correct/incorrect correctly. We have been working on producing initial /f/ for at least a month with little progress. Do you have any suggestions?
- SLPCarrieNovember 3, 2014 at 3:37 pm - Reply
  See Also
  F Word List For Speech Therapy
  Oh man, that’s tough! I can’t tell you specifically what to do with that child since I don’t know her but I can tell you some of the things I’ve tried when I’ve had a child who was stuck on a sound or having trouble putting the sound together without gaps:
  1. Try working on the sound in another word position for a while
  2. Try giving that sound a break and working on a different sound for a bit and coming back to it
  3. Go back to the syllable level and practice saying the sound just with one vowel in a non-sense syllable, like “fuh, foh, foo”
  I hope one of those helps you!
HannahFebruary 6, 2017 at 11:27 am - Reply
Hi there,
I have a child stopping producing /b/ instead of /f/ we have finally after a lot of practise got /f/ in isolation.
I am trying for /f/ and schwa sound which she finds hard but I think did 1-2 out of 10 tries but Consonant Vowel words turn into f-bee, f-bay, f-bi,-f-boo etc….
I have sent her mum home today with a pack for prastising in isolation but a little stuck where to go next if she can’t get CV.
Any advice would be helpful!
- SLPCarrieFebruary 16, 2017 at 2:04 pm - Reply
  The more times you practice that sound in isolation, the easier it should get. And eventually, she should be able to say it with a vowel! I usually have them keep practicing isolation at home to solidify the brain pathway for that sound and we work on different elicitation techniques in therapy to try to get the CV or VC.
SussaneApril 5, 2017 at 6:19 pm - Reply
Hi, I am a teacher and currently have a child who pronounces all /a/ as /e/, so pan is pronounced as pen.
I have searched google but this doesn’t seem to be a common issue. He also sometimes confuses /u/ with /e/, so umbrella is pronounced embrella.
I have tried to model the correct sound but I will over-exaggerate the /a/ and he will try his best but just repeat /e/. It is as if he doesn’t possess that sound.
Any tips? What are the mouth tongue position differences between /e/ and /a/?
- SLPCarrieApril 10, 2017 at 10:51 am - Reply
  Correcting vowels is very tricky. I would highly recommend seeing if the school speech-language pathologist can help with that one!
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robynSeptember 27, 2017 at 4:23 am - Reply
we too have a child who can not pronounce the middle vowel sound correctly and this child has dyspraxia. Worth checking out!
KatOctober 20, 2017 at 8:29 pm - Reply
Hi there,
Im working with a child with Initial Consonant Deletion. He can say f medially and finally, but he can’t produce the initial /f/ in a word. I also really struggle to get him to make the sound on its own! As he is only three, he often gets upset and disengaged the minute he can’t do it. Do you have any suggestions for teaching him the f sound in the initial word position? its so hard and he is so young so doing things like the spider for “fi fa fo” is too complex for him!
- Kena RothFebruary 5, 2018 at 6:55 pm - Reply
  Hi, Kat-
  You can try this link out!
Mike BovaAugust 30, 2018 at 7:08 am - Reply
Just started working with a 6 year old lower SDC child who has an articulation goal of producing the /f/. Autistic and has no cognitive interaction with me. Often in the session i had to re-direct him just to look at me. He would not imitate me biting my lip, blowing air with his upper teeth even in close proximity to my lower lip. He is will also resist my efforts to bring his lower lip up to his teeth and pull away.
I’m looking for any suggestions to help him even approximate the upper teeth on his lower lip as a start.
PkSeptember 23, 2019 at 3:45 am - Reply
Hello guys! I need your help i am working with a child on the sound /f/. He can say it now in isolation but cant pronounce it in syllables. He says /fka/ instead of /fa/. I need some tips plzz!!
Ryan DOctober 29, 2020 at 11:51 pm - Reply
So far, for kids who can say final /f/ , but stop /f/ in initial position with (b,p, etc) , I use reduplicated syllables /afafaf/ olaf! So I trick them into saying the initial f on the back end of the first syllable. I also like using /f/+ an /h/ initial word to try blend the sounds together, ie /f/+ honey= funny. I call it Math for your mouth. If you can get a finger on their upper lip, Still Upper Lip, to freeze their lip from closing on the fricative /f/. Hope this helps someone someday!