Medial CH Words for Speech Therapy

Word list

Words without competing sounds

• achieve
• achieved
• beaches
• benchmark
• branches
• capture
• captured
• christian
• christians
• churches
• coaches
• coaching
• creature
• creatures
• culture
• cultures
• discharge
• exchange
• feature
• featured
• features
• fixtures
• fortune
• franchise
• future
• futures
• inches
• kitchen
• launches
• lecture
• lectures
• matches
• matching
• mature
• mixture
• moisture
• nature
• patches
• picture
• pictures
• purchase
• question
• questions
• reaches
• reaching
• sculpture
• searches
• searching
• speeches
• switches
• switching
• venture
• ventures
• virtue
• watches
• watching
• achieving
• actual
• adventure
• adventures
• apache
• approaches
• bachelor
• centuries
• century
• cultural
• departure
• exchanges
• featuring
• furniture
• merchandise
• mutual
• natural
• purchases
• purchasing
• questionnaire
• researcher
• researchers
• signature
• signatures
• suggestion
• suggestions
• virtual
• actually
• agriculture
• conceptual
• expenditure
• expenditures
• legislature
• manufacture
• manufactured
• miniature
• naturally
• spiritual
• virtually
• agricultural
• eventually
• manufacturer
• manufacturers
• manufacturing
• obituaries

Worksheet preview

About Medial CH words

In medial position the affricate has to be assembled mid-word, with the preceding vowel already running. The stop closure is the part most often lost here, which turns teacher into teasher without the child noticing the change.

The -ture family — picture, nature, future, adventure — is a large and easily missed group, because nothing in the spelling suggests CH. These words are also common in school vocabulary, which makes them practical carryover material for older students.

Practising Medial CH

Two-syllable words where CH opens the second syllable, such as kitchen and teacher, give the cleanest medial target. Slowing the word at the syllable boundary lets the child hear whether the stop closure is still there.

Acquisition ages: Crowe & McLeod (2020), American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Educational content — an SLP chooses the target for a specific child.

Frequently asked questions

How many words have /ch/ in the medial position?

Our dictionary lists 147 medial /ch/ words suitable for speech therapy practice.

What are some example medial /ch/ words?

Examples include launched, matched, reached, searched, switched, touched, watched, achieve.

Why are picture and nature on the CH list?

Because both are pronounced with a CH sound in the middle — the -ture ending carries CH despite being spelled with t. Matching by pronunciation catches this whole family of words.

Why does my student say teasher for teacher?

That is deaffrication: the stop closure is dropped and only the SH portion is produced. Building the sound from a held /t/ released into SH targets the missing half directly.