CH Words List for Speech Therapy Practice
A practical CH words list for speech therapy — initial, medial, and final positions — plus tips for targeting the "ch" sound in articulation therapy.
The "ch" sound (/tʃ/) is a voiceless palato-alveolar affricate — a stop plus a fricative produced together. It typically emerges around age 3 to 4 and stabilizes later, so speech-language pathologists often target it when a child is still substituting other sounds well beyond that window. Word lists organized by position are the workhorse of articulation therapy.
CH words by position
Practicing a sound in all three word positions builds generalization. Below are common, high-frequency words for each.
Initial CH
chair, cheese, chicken, chimney, chin, cheetah, cherry, chin, chop, chain, chase, champ, charge, cheek, chest, chew, choice
Medial CH
kitchen, matches, peach, teacher, catcher, pitcher, catcher, lunchbox, ostrich, nacho, hamburger, pocketbook
Final CH
lunch, bench, watch, peach, catch, match, patch, witch, ditch, hatch, crunch, branch, ranch
Use real, image-friendly words so younger clients can match picture to production.
How to use the list in therapy
- Establish the sound at the syllable level first (cha, chee, cho) before words, especially for children who collapse the affricate into a simple stop or fricative.
- Move words → phrases → sentences → conversation. Do not jump to sentences before the sound is stable at the word level.
- Alternate positions early to prevent a child who only produces "ch" well at the start of a word.
- Pair with minimal pairs if the error is phonological (e.g., /tʃ/ vs /ʃ/, as in "chair" vs "share").
Documentation and ICD/CPT
Articulation therapy documentation should tie goals to measurable production targets. Use the ICD-10 lookup for developmental articulation disorders and a treatment plan goal builder to write measurable objectives — for example, producing the "ch" sound in the initial position of words with 80% accuracy across two consecutive sessions.