Furry Fox’s Sound
Below you will find BONUS ACTIVITIES that come with your purchase of The Speech Sound Set Alphabet Cards.
Note that in this series, only lower-case non-cursive letters are included. Lower-case letters are certainly more difficult to write than capitals, but this resource is about exposing children to the look of the letters that they will be seeing in the sentences of their ‘readers’ (books) when they begin formal schooling.
Buy The Speech Sound Set Alphabet CardsAbout the Sound
This sound is loooooong and blowy. It’s a soft sound.
Sound Pair
A sound pair is another sound that is made in the same way – only one of the pairs is LOUD (uses voice) and the other is SOFT (uses no voice, is whispered). Not all sounds have a pair. When a sound is involved with a speech error, often (but not always) the Sound Pair will also be involved in the same speech error.
The sounds of Furry Fox (soft) and Victor Vampire (loud) are Sound Pairs.
When it develops
This sound starts to appear later in a child’s speech than sounds like /d/ and /b/ but it is usually used correctly in words between the ages of 3 and 3;11 years.
How it is made
Tuck your bottom lip under your top teeth and blow! Furry Fox does this too and then blows a feather off his chin. (Often in the production of this sound, the bottom lip is just pressed upwards again the top teeth, not tucked behind the teeth).
Tips to help
Old speech therapy programs used to encourage children to stick their front teeth out over their bottom lip like a rabbit. The active movement is actually the BOTTOM lip doing the work.
Have the child push the bottom lip behind (or upwards towards the top teeth) using their finger. As they hold the finger there, have them blow air gently at their finger. After getting the sound, try following on with a word…. E.g. ‘f…our!’ (Four).
Common Errors
Remember, some speech sound errors are perfectly NORMAL as a child progresses in their speech development.
- A young speaker might produce a /b/ or /p/ sound instead of a /f/ sound. (E.g. “punny” or “bunny” for “funny”). This error is called STOPPING because the long sound /f/ is “stopped” into a short sound. This can be seen as part of normal speech development but naturally “disappears” by the age of 3 years. *Children who are “stopping”, will often “stop” the long /s/ sound also, producing it as a short /t/ or /d/ sound (saying “tun” or “dun” for “sun”).
- When children lose their central front baby teeth, they may have trouble making this sound for the period until the new adult teeth are in place. This is a temporary error only. Usually children will have established correct production of this sound before they lose their front teeth.
- One feature of Aboriginal English is the /f/ sound being replaced by the /p/ or /b/ sound Traditionally, Furry Fox’s /f/ sound was rare in Aboriginal languages (along with the sounds /v/ and /th/) .
- Furry Fox’s sound is very soft and also very high-pitched (along with Thirsty Theo’s /th/ sound and Sammy Snake’s /s/ sound), so children with even a mild high-frequency hearing loss may have trouble hearing this sound and differentiating it from others. If you can’t hear it, it is difficult to learn it, right? Keep children facing you so they are able to watch your mouth as you say words. Otherwise, words like “sun” and “fun” might sound very similar.
Arnie the Articulation Teddy from Puppets for Learning is a fun way to show the placement of the mouth to make sounds. Here Arnie is getting read to make the /f/ sound. How cute is he!?
You can check out the Arnie puppet and program here.
About the Letter
The lower-case letter used in this set is the non-cursive letter f. Non-cursive is what is most often seen in text and in the world around a child, so we encourage all written text to be presented in non-cursive in the preschool setting.
The letter’s name is pronounced “eff”.
Activities
Colour-In
1. Learners can be shown how to form the letter, starting at the star. If there are two possible ways the writer could head with their pencil (or crayon), they should head towards the smaller star next. Try and give consistent instructions when you demonstrate letter formation. E.g. “This is how you do the letter F …. Back over, down and then across”. 2. Children can practise again and again within the outline. Using different colours can make it more fun. Encourage a child to say the sound as they trace the letter (not the letter name). 3. Together look at the pictures, name each and LISTEN for the first sound of each word. It will begin with the target sound. 4. You can point to the first letter in each word. Name the letter.
Picture Cards
Each picture begins with the target sound. You can print these out and make cards or just look at them on a device.
1) Cards can be used for these for a range of games such as SNAP, BINGO or MEMORY.
2) Start a double-spread page in a scrapbook for each sound. Paste in the colour-in (above), practise writing the letter and cut out and paste the pictures on the pages.
3) Combine them with another set from a different sound and do a SORTING ACTIVITY.
4)Make a poster for each sound and paste on the corresponding pictures.
Find the Letter
View the download on a digital device and point to the target letters or print out and circle/ underline the letters. Try and encourage scanning of left to right of each line while looking for letters.
REFERENCES
Crowe, K. and McLeod, S. (2020). Children’s English Consonant Acquisition In the United States: A Review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 4(29), 2155-2169. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_ajslp-19-00168
McLeod, S., & Singh, S. (2009). Speech sounds: A pictorial guide to typical and atypical speech. Plural Publishing.
Peña-Brooks, A., & Hegde, M. N. (2015). Assessment and Treatment of Speech Sound Disorders in Children: A Dual-Level Text. Austin, TX: PRO-ED.
Shipley, K. G., & McAfee, J. G. (2016). Assessment in speech-language pathology: A resource manual. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.