TH, voiced

The th of this, that and mother — the same two letters with the voice turned on. Almost every common function word takes this one.

Digraphs

th DIGRAPH_TH_02

Word-family rule · Medium reliability · Very common · Beginner · Reading

/ð/ voiced th: this, that, mother

Where Wiggler teaches it: Skill 3: Consonant Digraphs

Child explanation

This th buzzes. Put your hand on your throat and say this — you can feel it. Now say thin — no buzz.

The rule

The voiced th appears in the small, extremely frequent set of function words — the, this, that, these, those, they, them, then, there, than, though — and between vowels in words like mother, father, weather and brother.

What is really going on

Voiced /ð/ is rarer than /θ/ by word count but far more frequent by token count, because the words carrying it are among the twenty most common words in English. Word-initially it occurs almost exclusively in function words; medially it is common between vowels; word-finally it appears mainly with a following silent e — breathe, bathe, soothe.

Position in the word

Beginning of a word — Function words, and almost nothing else. For example: the, this, that, they, them, then, there.
Middle of a word — Between vowels, commonly voiced. For example: mother, father, brother, weather, other, together.
End of a word — With a silent e after it. For example: breathe, bathe, soothe, smooth.

Examples

Easy examples

the, this, that, they, then

More examples

these, those, them, there, than, though, mother, father, brother, other, weather, together

Advanced examples

breathe, bathe, soothe, smooth, although

Contrast pairs

this versus thin — Voiced versus unvoiced, identical spelling.
breath versus breathe — A minimal pair where the silent e marks the voicing as well as the vowel.
cloth versus clothe

Decodable sentences

This is my mother and that is my brother.
They said the weather would be better than this.
Then we all went there together.

Teacher note

The, this and that are among the first words a child meets, so voiced th arrives before it can be taught. Treat those words as known sight vocabulary at first, and come back to name the voicing once the child has met several. The useful generalisation to give them is the word-type one: little grammar words buzz, describing words mostly do not.

Related rules

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To read with every step of the way.

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