Final SH Words for Speech Therapy
Words that end on SH — fish, brush, wash, dish, push. A short list, because relatively few common English words close on this sound, but a useful one: the sound can be held at the end of a word for as long as the child needs.
Word list
1-syllable
- ash
- brush
- bush
- cache
- cash
- crash
- dash
- dish
- fish
- flash
- flesh
- flush
- fresh
- hash
- josh
- marsh
- mesh
- push
- rush
- trash
- wash
- wish
2-syllable
- danish
- english
- fetish
- finish
- parish
- polish
- publish
- refresh
- stylish
3-syllable
- accomplish
- establish
- macintosh
Words without competing sounds
- ash
- brush
- bush
- cache
- cash
- crash
- dash
- dish
- fish
- flash
- flesh
- flush
- fresh
- hash
- josh
- marsh
- mesh
- push
- rush
- trash
- wash
- wish
- danish
- english
- fetish
- finish
- parish
- polish
- publish
- refresh
- accomplish
- macintosh
Related lists
Other SH positions
Other sounds in the final position
Worksheet preview
/sh/: 34 words · competing-free 32Generate a custom worksheet for this sound
Generate your worksheetAbout Final SH words
Final SH is a continuant, which makes it one of the friendlier word-final targets: the child can hold it as long as needed, and both the clinician and the child can hear whether it is SH or the /s/ that often replaces it.
The substitution pattern mirrors the initial position — fish toward fiss — but the contrast is easier to hear at the end of a word, where nothing follows to mask it. That makes final SH a practical place to establish the S–SH distinction even when the treatment target is elsewhere.
Practising Final SH
Hold the final SH well past its natural length and let the child match it; the sustained fricative makes lip rounding audible. The list is short enough to work through in a session, which suits it to probing rather than extended drill.
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 /sh/ in the final position?
- Our dictionary lists 34 final /sh/ words suitable for speech therapy practice.
- What are some example final /sh/ words?
- Examples include ash, brush, bush, cache, cash, crash, dash, dish.
- Why are there so few final SH words?
- English has few common words ending in this sound. The list holds the ones that are genuinely usable in therapy rather than padding it out with rare vocabulary.
- Is final SH easier than final CH?
- Often, yes. SH is a fricative that can be sustained indefinitely, while CH is an affricate that has to be built from a stop and released. Children working on both sounds frequently establish SH first and use it as the fricative half of CH.
When do kids master each sound?
Free interactive checker: pick a sound and an age, see the research norm — all 24 consonants, sourced from Crowe & McLeod (2020).
Open the checker →