Minimal pairs are pairs of words that only differ in one phonetic element or letter; example; car vs tar. They can be extremely useful in helping a student overcome a speech sound error where one sound substituted for another. For example for a child who is substituting a /T/ sound for /K/ sounds. A list of pictured words would be practiced with the child;
key & tea
cape & tape
can & tan
...and so on. When starting this the child will be of course producing each word pair as the same word (key & tea; both will sound like tea) As you progress through the list of words the child should begin to see that there is contrast to these words and begin to question how he/she is making these words. You can say things like "Those sounded the same to me, did they to you?" It will increase the child's awareness that something is not right with the way they are producing these and may prompt them to try something different which is exactly what we want!
Some common substitution errors are; t for k, d for g, f for th, w for l, w for r, b for v. If you see children making substitution errors like these minimal pairs may help. You can create your own or even do a Google search as there are sheets of pictured lists available online for free. We would be happy to get you some lists to practice in the classroom or to send home for practice.
