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The /l/ sound is made by placing the tip of your tongue on your alveolar ridge, the small bump on the roof of your mouth just behind your front teeth. The sides of the tongue do not touch other parts of your mouth, and the air travels around your tongue to produce the sound. The /l/ sound is a voiced sound, so your …

The /s/ sound is made by placing the tip of your tongue just behind the front teeth, very close to the roof of the mouth but not touching it. The sides of the tongue are raised to touch the roof of the mouth, leaving a passage for air down the middle of the tongue. The sides of the tongue should also rest against …

The /ch/ sound is actually a combination of the /t/ and the /sh/ sound. To make the sound, begin with your teeth together and bring the tip of your tongue to the small ridge just behind the front teeth. The corners of the lips are puller together so the lips pucker. This is a voiceless stop consonant, which means that the sound comes …

The /sh/ sound is made by putting the teeth together and bringing the corners of the lips towards the middle, so the lips pucker like a kiss. The middle of the tongue comes up only slightly and barely touches the corners of the top teeth without touching the roof of the mouth. The front of the tongue dips down a tiny bit, but …

The /z/ sound uses the same mouth position as the /s/ sound, but the /z/ sound is voiced whereas the /s/ sound is unvoiced. This means that the passage of air through your mouth combines with the vibration of your vocal cords to create the sound. To position your mouth, place the tip of your tongue behind your teeth and very close to …

The /j/ sound is made with the exact same mouth positioning as the /ch/ sound, but the /j/ sound is voiced. This means that the sound is produced comes from both the vibration of the vocal cords and from the movement of air through the mouth. To make the sound, put your teeth together and pull the corners of your lips to the …

To make the /v/ sound, bring your bottom lip up to your top teeth so that they are just touching. The /v/ sound is made with the same mouth positioning as the /f/ sound. The only difference is that the /f/sound is unvoiced and the /v/ sound is voiced. This means that as air moves through the mouth and the …

If you listen closely, the /th/ sound in the English language is really used in two distinct ways, creating two separate sounds. Even though both versions of the /th/ sound are produced with the same mouth position, the voiced /th/ uses the vocal cords to amplify the sound, such as in “this”, “then”,and “though”. The unvoiced /th/ sound relies only …

The /zh/ sound is the sound you hear in the word “measure” or “decision”. It uses the exact same mouth position as the /sh/ sound, but the /zh/ sound is voiced. This means that the /zh/ sound includes the sound produced by vibrating the vocal cords along with the air passing through the mouth. To make the/zh/ sound, pull the …

Karen George, local Chicago children’s speech therapist, recently wrote and released the book A Parent’s Guide to Language Development Milestones from Birth to 3 Years, as a leading resource for parents and pediatricians. With the success of George’s rapidly growing practice Chicago Speech Therapy, pediatricians began to seek her out for expert advice on children’s speech and language development to …