SH Words Speech Therapy: How to Help Your Child Say the SH Sound
SH words speech therapy is the work a speech-language pathologist does to help a child say the SH sound clearly in words like ship, fish, and wash. Most children say the SH sound clearly by around age five.
The SH sound appears in dozens of everyday words, so teachers and classmates may have trouble following a child who swaps it for S. Sometimes the sound is still developing, but in other cases, speech therapy can help when a child needs extra support.
This article explains what the SH sound is, when children usually learn to say it, why common errors happen, what to expect from speech therapy, and which SH words speech therapists use for practice. It’s written for parents and caregivers whose children are still working on the SH sound.
Key Takeaways
What it is: SH words speech therapy teaches a child to say the SH sound clearly in words like ship, fish, and wash. Recent research places SH among the sounds most children can say by about age five, though older data places it later.
A common error: Children often replace SH with S, so "ship" becomes "sip". Some leave the sound out entirely, and others produce a slushy version that is close but not clear.
How speech therapy works: A speech therapist typically starts by helping the child produce the sound on its own, then builds it into syllables, SH words, and everyday talk. Speech therapists use mirrors, visual cues, repeated practice, and word lists chosen for your child.
Practice at home: Home practice helps most after a speech-language pathologist has shown your child how to make the sound. Drilling a sound a child can't yet produce can make the error harder to change.
When Should a Child Say the SH Sound?
Why Does My Child Say Sip Instead of Ship?
How Speech Therapy Teaches the SH Sound
SH Word Lists for Speech Therapy Practice
What We See Working with Clients
What Is the SH Sound?
The SH sound is the quiet hiss at the start of ship and the end of fish. Its clinical name is a voiceless postalveolar fricative. In plain words, the air keeps flowing through the mouth, the vocal folds stay quiet, and the tongue sits further back than it does for S.
The lips, tongue, air, and voice all work together when a child makes the SH sound.
Lips: they round slightly, the way they do before a kiss or when saying oo.
Tongue: the front lifts toward the roof of the mouth just behind the ridge above the top front teeth, the sides press against the upper back teeth, and the middle of the mouth stays open so air can pass.
Air: the child has to blow a steady stream of air down the middle of the tongue and out through that opening.
Voice: SH is a quiet sound made without using your voice.
That combination distinguishes SH from the sounds many children substitute for it, mainly S and CH. SH and CH are made in a similar area of the mouth, but they are different sounds, and a child can have trouble with one and not the other. The CH sound is not always addressed at the same time.
When Should a Child Say the SH Sound?
Children usually say the SH sound clearly by around age five. A 2020 review of how children in the U.S. acquire sounds by Crowe and McLeod found that SH is typically learned between ages four and five. The researchers based that range on the point at which 90 percent of children in the studies could say the sound correctly.
Older developmental charts sometimes place SH later. Both the newer research and the older charts are still in circulation, which is one reason the advice you find online varies.
Age is only one part of the decision. If your child is five and still says "sip" for "ship" in most words, an evaluation is warranted. At three, a young child is often still learning the sound, and modeling the word correctly is usually enough for now.
How easy your child is to understand matters too. If your child is five and strangers still struggle to follow them, that is worth an evaluation.
These patterns also point toward an evaluation.
Your child is five or older and still substitutes another sound for SH in most words.
Familiar listeners follow your child, but teachers or classmates ask for a repeat.
You hear the same swap on other sounds, not just SH.
Your child avoids certain words or gets frustrated when people don't understand what they say.
Your child used to say "SH" clearly but no longer does. A doctor can check for a medical cause of a sudden change.
If you're concerned about your child's hearing, or if your child has a history of frequent ear infections, consult an audiologist to check their hearing. Hearing loss can affect speech and language development, so ruling it out early matters.
A child also needs to hear the difference between S and SH to learn to say them differently. During an evaluation, a speech-language pathologist may check whether your child can tell these two sounds apart.
Children develop speech sounds at different rates. If your child has difficulty with the SH sound or you're concerned about how clearly they speak, a speech-language pathologist can help determine whether speech therapy is needed.
Why Does My Child Say Sip Instead of Ship?
Some children replace SH with S because the two sounds are made in similar ways, but S is produced farther forward in the mouth. If a child does this only with SH, the difficulty may be specific to that sound.
If the same type of error occurs across a group of sounds, speech-language pathologists call it a phonological process, or a pattern in the way a child uses sounds in words. For example, consistently replacing SH, CH, and J with sounds made farther forward in the mouth may be called palatal fronting.
Replacing SH with S is one type of substitution, but children can have difficulty with the SH sound in several different ways:
Substitution: Another sound replaces SH. For example, "ship" becomes "sip." Some children may use T or CH instead.
Omission: The child leaves SH out completely. For example, "shoe" becomes "oo" or "wash" becomes "wa."
Distortion: The child says something similar to SH, but the sound is unclear. For example, air may escape over the sides of the tongue and make SH sound slushy.
Inconsistency: The child can say SH correctly in some words or situations but not in others.
The type of error and whether it occurs only with SH or across several sounds help a speech-language pathologist decide what to work on in therapy. If the difficulty is specific to SH, speech therapy may focus directly on teaching that sound. If SH is part of a broader pattern of speech-sound errors, therapy may address the pattern across several sounds.
An evaluation helps the speech-language pathologist determine what your child is having difficulty with and which approach to treatment is most appropriate.
Understanding Articulation vs. Phonological Disorders
Articulation and phonological disorders can look identical in a young child, and telling them apart changes what a speech therapist works on.
How Speech Therapy Teaches the SH Sound
Speech therapy for SH looks different for every child. The speech therapist starts by evaluating what sounds your child can already produce. One child may not be able to say SH at all, while another may say it clearly in "shoe" but have trouble with it in other words. The starting point depends on the sounds your child is producing successfully.
A speech therapist can help a child learn the SH sound in several ways. The therapist may try more than one to find the cue that works best for your child.
Showing your child how to make SH: The therapist may use a mirror to show your child what to do with their mouth. For SH, the lips are usually slightly rounded, and the tongue is farther back than it is for S.
Turning S into SH: If your child can say S, the therapist may have them hold the S sound and then help them move their tongue slightly back and round their lips until it begins to sound like SH.
Starting with "ee": Saying "ee" puts the tongue in a position that can sometimes make it easier to find SH. The therapist can then help your child change their mouth position until they hear the SH sound.
Using "miss you": When "miss you" is said smoothly, the sounds where the two words meet can begin to sound like SH. A therapist may use that as another way to help a child discover the sound.
Using a simple reminder: A gesture such as putting a finger to the lips for "shhh" can give your child a quick visual reminder of the sound they are working on.
What happens next also depends on your child. Some children need to practice "shhh" by itself before they can put it into a word. Others can already say SH in certain words, so the therapist may start there. As it gets easier, practice expands to more words and longer sentences, with the goal of helping your child use SH clearly during everyday conversation.
Practice does not have to mean sitting at a table repeating a list of words. Speech therapists may use games, books, scavenger hunts, or other articulation activities to give your child plenty of chances to use the sound. Your therapist can also show you what to practice at home so you reinforce the same skills your child is learning in therapy sessions.
SH Word Lists for Speech Therapy Practice
An SH word list is a set of SH words used to practice the sound. It is sorted by sound position, meaning where the SH falls in each word.
Speech-language pathologists split an SH word list into initial, medial, and final positions, with words sorted by syllable count. They also prefer functional words a child says every day. The SH words included below are a starting point, not a program.
Initial SH Words
Initial SH words have the SH sound at the beginning, as in "ship," "shoe," and "shop." SH can also appear at the beginning of longer, multi-syllable words, such as "shampoo" and "shoulder."
ship, shoe, shirt, shop, shell, shark, sheep, shine, shadow, shampoo, shoulder
Medial SH Words
In medial SH words, the sound falls in the middle, as in ocean and washing.
ocean, washing, cushion, machine, fashion, sunshine, flashlight, mushroom, milkshake, musician
Final SH Words
In final SH words, the sound closes the word, as in fish and brush.
fish, wish, push, brush, crash, flash, splash, rush, crush, dish
How to Use These SH Word Lists at Home
Home practice with these word lists works best after a speech pathologist has shown your child how to make the SH sound. Until then, model the word correctly and move on.
Your speech therapist picks the SH words included above to send home. These practical tips can make at-home practice more effective.
Practice the SH words your therapist sends home, such as shoes, shirt, brush, or fish.
Keep extra practice short and work it into an easy part of your child's day.
Let your speech therapist choose the word position to practice first. Whether SH initial words or final SH words come first depends on the child, not on the initial, medial, and final order of the list above.
What We See Working with Clients
We work with children on single speech sounds, such as SH. The examples below are based on real clients we have worked with. We changed identifying details to protect privacy.
One boy came to us at six, still saying "sip" for "ship" and "wass" for "wash". His teacher had noted that other children sometimes asked him to repeat, and he had started giving shorter answers at school.
His speech therapist started with a long S and helped him gradually turn it into SH by moving his tongue back and rounding his lips. He used a small mirror so he could see what his mouth was doing. At home, his parents practiced a short list of SH words he used regularly, including "shirt," "shampoo," and "dish."
By the end of his sessions, he used SH more consistently in words and sentences and began to notice and correct his own errors during everyday conversation.
A 5-year-old girl left the sound out entirely, so "shoe" came out as "oo". On video calls, her grandparents asked her to repeat several times a week, and she had begun letting her brother answer for her.
Because she had a history of frequent ear infections, an audiologist checked her hearing before she began speech therapy. Her hearing was normal, and the speech evaluation showed she had difficulty producing the SH sound clearly.
Her speech therapist used the "quiet sound" cue to help her learn SH, and within a few sessions, she could make the sound on her own. From there, they practiced SH in words that were important to her. They started with words that ended in SH, such as "fish" and "wish," because those were words she wanted to say clearly.
By the end of her sessions, her SH sound was much clearer in everyday conversation. Her grandparents rarely needed to ask her to repeat herself on video calls, and she was more likely to answer for herself instead of relying on her brother.
Frequently Asked Questions About SH Words
1. Will my child outgrow SH sound errors?
Some children do, and some do not. A 3-year-old is often still learning SH. If a 5-year-old still says "sip" for "ship," it is worth having a speech therapist evaluate the error rather than waiting.
2. Can practicing the SH sound at home make it worse?
It can, if your child is practicing the wrong movement. Repeating the wrong movement over and over can make the error harder to change. Model the word and carry on until a speech therapist has shown your child what to do.
3. Do we still need a speech therapist if we practice at home?
Yes, if the error persists or affects how well others understand your child. A speech therapist can determine what your child needs to work on and show you how to practice those skills effectively at home.
4. Is online speech therapy effective for SH sound difficulties?
For many children, yes, though it depends on the individual child. During SH therapy, your child can watch the speech therapist demonstrate the sound, practice it themselves, and get immediate feedback, all of which can be done over video. If you are weighing in-person vs. online options, a speech-language pathologist can help you decide which is a better fit for your child.
How Connected Speech Pathology Can Help
Connected Speech Pathology is a private practice that treats speech sound errors in children, including SH and the wider patterns behind them.
Every child starts with an evaluation. A licensed speech-language pathologist listens to your child's speech and looks for patterns in the errors.
We provide speech therapy sessions online, which allows your child to work with their speech therapist from home. During sessions, children can see the therapist demonstrate how to make the target sound and receive immediate feedback as they practice. Parents can also observe the techniques the therapist uses and learn how to support practice between sessions.
Our articulation therapy for kids is tailored to the sounds your child is working on and how those difficulties affect their speech. Your speech therapist will recommend home practice based on your child's individual needs and progress.
Summary
SH words speech therapy helps children learn to say the SH sound clearly and use it more consistently in everyday speech. Most children can say SH by around age five, although some children may replace it with another sound, leave it out, or have difficulty saying it clearly.
A speech-language pathologist can determine what is causing your child's difficulty and whether SH is the only sound affected or part of a broader pattern. Speech therapy can progress from sounds to syllables, words, and conversation, with SH words sorted into initial, medial, and final positions. The exact progression depends on the child.
About the Author
Allison Geller, M.A., CCC-SLP, is a communication coach, speech-language pathologist, and founder of Connected Speech Pathology, an international online practice providing professional communication coaching and speech therapy for children, teens, and adults. With more than two decades of experience, she has worked in medical and educational settings and published research on aphasia. Today, she leads a team of specialists who help clients improve their skills in public speaking, vocal presence, accent clarity, articulation, language, fluency, and interpersonal communication.
