Initial V Words for Speech Therapy

Word list

Words without competing sounds

• valve
• valves
• van
• vast
• vat
• vault
• verse
• vice
• view
• viewed
• views
• voice
• void
• volt
• vote
• votes
• vaccine
• vacuum
• valid
• valley
• value
• valued
• values
• vampire
• varied
• varies
• vary
• vector
• vegas
• velvet
• vendor
• vendors
• venture
• ventures
• venue
• venues
• version
• versions
• versus
• vertex
• very
• vessel
• vessels
• via
• victim
• victims
• victor
• viewer
• viewers
• viewing
• viking
• villa
• village
• villas
• vintage
• vinyl
• viral
• virgin
• virtue
• virus
• visa
• vision
• visit
• visits
• vista
• vital
• vocal
• vocals
• voices
• voltage
• volume
• volumes
• voted
• voters
• voting
• vacancies
• vacation
• vacations
• valentine
• valium
• vanilla
• variance
• various
• varying
• vehicle
• vehicles
• vertical
• veteran
• veterans
• victory
• video
• videos
• vienna
• villages
• violence
• violent
• violin
• virginia
• virtual
• viruses
• visited
• visiting
• visitor
• visitors
• visual
• vitamin
• vitamins
• volunteer
• volunteers
• validation
• validity
• valuation
• variation
• variations
• varieties
• variety
• vegetation
• velocity
• veterinary
• victoria
• violation
• violations
• virtually
• vocational
• voluntary
• vegetarian

Worksheet preview

About Initial V words

/v/ arrives later than /f/ — 90% of children produce it by 4;11 against 3;11 for /f/ (Crowe & McLeod, 2020) — because sustaining voicing through a fricative is harder than producing the fricative alone. Two errors are common: stopping to /b/, so very becomes berry, and devoicing to /f/, so van becomes fan.

Those two errors sit at different stages. A child saying berry has not yet separated the fricative from the stop; a child saying fan has the fricative and needs only the voicing, which is much closer to the target.

Practising Initial V

A hand on the throat is the decisive cue here, because /v/ and /f/ share placement exactly and differ only in the buzz. Starting from a held /f/ and switching on voicing without moving the lips reaches /v/ directly.

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 /v/ in the initial position?

Our dictionary lists 141 initial /v/ words suitable for speech therapy practice.

What are some example initial /v/ words?

Examples include valve, valves, van, vast, vat, vault, verse, vice.

Why does my student say berry for very?

That is stopping — the fricative is replaced by a stop made at the lips. It is an earlier-stage error than saying fan for van, where the fricative is already correct and only voicing is missing.

Why is /v/ later than /f/?

Holding voicing through a fricative takes more coordination than producing the same fricative voiceless. The pattern repeats across English fricative pairs, with the voiced member consistently later.