Initial F and Final F Words for Speech Therapy

If you’re a speech-language pathologist looking for a quick list of initial and final f target words to practice during speech therapy, make sure to bookmark this post. You’ll also find some great ideas for making therapy more fun with a variety of engaging games, resources, and speech therapy activities for teaching the f sound. Not only does this blog post provide a list of initial and final f words, but it also suggests a variety of strategies for teaching correct placement.

Correct Production of F

The f sound is a labiodental fricative sound. To produce the f sound, the top teeth need to rest against the bottom lip. When the top front teeth are placed on the lower lip, the next step is to blow a small puff of air. The result will be /f/ in isolation.

Common F Sound Errors

A child with an articulation disorder or phonological disorder may substitute the p sound for the f sound. In other words, the place and manner of articulation have been modified. The fricative sound is changed to a stop-plosive sound. The result may be an error that a speech language pathologist might classify as “stopping”, because the airflow is literally stopped. An example of this would be saying “pish” for “fish”. Stopping can be a common process noted in young children with phonological disorders. You may find minimal pairs for stopping to be a helpful tool when correcting this substitution. These errors may impact a child’s speech intelligibility.

How To Teach the F Sound in Speech Therapy

Speech Therapy Suggestions

It is often helpful to provide a tactile cue. This might be as simple as tapping or touching the bottom lip.

A fun way to remind your student about how to produce this sound is to give it a fun name that emphasizes “biting” down on the lower lip. You might give the f sound a silly name, like the “biting sound” or the “walrus teeth sound” or the “bunny teeth sound”.

SLPs could also elicit this sound by having the student practice moving a lightweight object, like a piece of dental string, across a table.

A lot of times, younger children might have a hard time and produce a “stop insertion” error while trying to say the f sound. In other words, while practicing the word “fish”, they might say, “f…bish.”

When this happens, I slow things down a bit. I model the f sound in isolation, pause, then open my mouth really wide. I exaggerate the vowel and then say the rest of the word. “F….AAAAAn” or “F….IIIIIIIsh.”

If I am practicing the f sound at the end of a word, I keep it simple at first. Speech pathologists may benefit by having the child keep the jaw in an elevated position. I like to encourage jaw stability. I often choose simple CVC target words, like “huff”.

Speech Sound Word Lists for the F Sound

The following word lists contain words with the initial f sound, medial f sound, final f sound, and f in consonant clusters (both initial and final position). These articulation word lists allow the SLP to easily work on a target sound in speech therapy. Quickly pull these word lists up during your speech therapy session and pair them with the game or activity of your choice.

Initial F Word List for Speech Therapy

Here is a list of f words in the initial position to use in speech therapy (f in the beginning of the word):

1. fan
2. feet
3. fun
4. fall
5. fame
6. fawn
7. farm
8. fire
9. file
10. feel
11. feed
12. fish
13. fork
14. fox
15. phone
16. fable
17. fairy
18. family
19. finger
20. fossil
21. forest
22. funnel
23. photo
24. farmer
25. faucet

Medial F Word List for Speech Therapy

Here is a list of f in the medial position of words to use in speech therapy (f in the middle of words):

1. muffin
2. dolphin
3. buffalo
4. puffin
5. coffee
6. toffee
7. waffle
8. sniffle
9. UFO
10. golfer
11. Bigfoot
12. buffet
13. raffle
14. fluffy
15. stuffy
16. hyphen
17. laughing
18. lifeguard
19. playful
20. rainfall
21. often
22. prefix
23. sofa
24. breakfast
25. outfield

Final F Word Lists for Speech Therapy

Here is a list of f in the final position of words to use in speech therapy (f at the end of words):

1. huff
2. puff
3. calf
4. off
5. if
6. beef
7. tough
8. woof
9. wolf
10. leaf
11. laugh
12. safe
13. wife
14. elf
15. stuff
16. sniff
17. cliff
18. giraffe
19. roof
20. proof
21. Jeff
22. whiff
23. belief
24. loaf
25. life

Initial Consonant Clusters with F Word List for Speech Therapy

Here is a list of initial consonant cluster f words to use in speech therapy:

1. fry
2. free
3. from
4. Fred
5. front
6. freeze
7. fried
8. frighten
9. France
10. fruit
11. frog
12. frozen
13. frame
14. freckles
15. friend
16. flag
17. flip
18. fly
19. fling
20. flex
21. floor
22. flood
23. flour
24. flow
25. flute

Speech Therapy Activities for the F Sound

Are you a school speech therapist looking for some great activities to work on the F sound? I’ll share 2 of my favorite go-to articulation activities that can be used for targeting this speech sound.

Initial F and Final F Picture Cards for Speech Therapy

A school speech therapist has a busy schedule and needs effective activities to use in therapy. These initial f and final f articulation picture cards are wonderful because they provide a speech sound mouth placement visual. They are also easy to send home for home practice. Family members can easily review the articulation f words as a carryover activity to work on their child’s speech.

To assemble, simply print out the cards, laminate them, then cut them out. Assemble them together using a binder ring for easy storage.

Playdough Articulation Activity

This activity targets a variety of speech sounds at the word level. Have fun practicing the f sound while creating “speech therapy manicures“! Simply pick the playdough of your choice, then practice a target word. After that, smash dough on the playdough smash mat and cover a nail. After practicing all of the target words, the manicure will be completed!

More Articulation Ideas for Speech Pathologists

Need some more articulation word lists or ideas? Check out the initial k and final k word lists. You’d also love this post with suggestions for using minimal pairs in speech therapy.