Fronting-Backing-Gliding – Minimal Pairs (Team Licence)

This fronting-Backing-Gliding – Minimal Pairs focuses on Fronting/Backing, Gliding.

• Fronting: when speech sounds made at the back of the mouth (/k/, /g/, /ng/) are produced at the front of the mouth, usually as /t/ and/or /d/. Examples: ‘car’ = ‘dar’; ‘garden’ = ‘darden’; ‘key’ = ‘tee’; ‘like’ = ‘lite’; ‘bag’ = ‘bad’.

This process is very frequently noted as part of a mild/moderate delay in speech development.

• Backing: when many sounds made at the front of the mouth are produced at the back of the mouth.
  Examples: ‘baby’ = ‘gaygee’; ‘teddy bear’ = ‘geggy gare’; ‘fish’ = ‘gi’;
  ‘elephant’ = ‘gegigung’.This error pattern is noted as part of disordered speech development.
• Gliding: /l/, /r/, /w/ and /y/ are classified as gliding and/or liquid sounds. Children with delayed speech development frequently exhibit errors on production of these sounds and use them interchangeably.
  Examples: ‘leg’ = ‘yeg’ or ‘weg’; ‘run’ = ‘wun’ or ‘yun’; ‘yellow’ = ‘wewow’ or ‘yeyow’.

This fronting-Backing-Gliding – Minimal Pairs resource is essential tool for working on phonological processes with children up to KS2.

Each of our Minimal Pairs Packs focuses on a particular phonological process and provides minimal pairs of that particular process in initial, medial and final position:

PIP 1: Fronting/Backing, Gliding
PIP 2: Stopping
PIP 3: Consonant Deletion
PIP 4: Cluster Reduction /s/
PIP 5: Cluster Reduction /l/ and /r/
PIP 6: Voicing/devoicing

Caroline Bowen offers excellent information on her website (speech-language-therapy.com) on minimal pair therapies which clearly describes the varying approaches that can be used by therapists, and again, the picture resources provided in our Pairs in Pictures series can be utilised to support these approaches. 

Aim: Use to develop sound awareness skills; help children identify process contrasts, minimal pairs therapy.

Age Range: Foundation Stage – KS 1+, 4years – 7years+.

Format: PDF file with 5 pages of instructions, 2 pages of extra pairs and sentences, 14 pages of colour illustrations with black and white duplicates (35 pages in total).

Snippet: Upgrade your account to send specially selected extracts of this resource, via our website, to parents and carers for homework exercises. The snippets for this resource include colour illustrations and the following:

• A series of coloured pictures which can be copied and made into lotto games and matching pairs games.
• A ‘which one am I talking about’ activity, where the child needs to find the picture that the adult describes.