Medial TH Words for Speech Therapy

Word list

Words without competing sounds

• clothes
• paths
• although
• author
• authors
• bathroom
• bathrooms
• bother
• breathing
• brother
• brothers
• catholic
• clothing
• earthquake
• either
• ethnic
• gather
• gothic
• healthcare
• healthy
• heather
• leather
• monthly
• mother
• mothers
• neither
• northern
• nothing
• other
• others
• python
• rather
• rhythm
• weather
• whether
• within
• worthy
• another
• anything
• ethical
• everything
• gathering
• marathon
• otherwise
• algorithm
• algorithms
• pathology
• anthropology
• authorization

Worksheet preview

About Medial TH words

Between two vowels the TH is nearly always voiced — mother, brother, other, weather. Where TH sits next to another consonant, as in birthday and bathtub, it is usually voiceless. That regularity makes medial position useful for targeting one TH without hunting for words.

The common substitutions carry over from initial position: /f/ for voiceless TH gives birfday, and /d/ for voiced TH gives mudder. Both are typical in young children and become targets only when they persist.

Practising Medial TH

Intervocalic entries such as mother and feather let the child hold a voiced TH with vowels supporting the voicing on both sides. Consonant-adjacent entries are harder and give you the voiceless TH when that is the target.

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 /th/ in the medial position?

Our dictionary lists 95 medial /th/ words suitable for speech therapy practice.

What are some example medial /th/ words?

Examples include baths, clothes, deaths, months, paths, strengths, although, athletes.

How do I find only voiced TH words?

Look for TH sitting between two vowels — mother, other, weather, and brother are all voiced. Where TH stands next to another consonant, as in birthday or bathtub, it is normally voiceless, so the surrounding letters tell you which TH you have before you say the word.

Why is the medial TH list short?

TH is a relatively infrequent consonant in English, and the word-internal position is the least common of the three. The list holds every common word that qualifies rather than padding it with rare vocabulary.