Voiced and Voiceless Sounds

What Are Voiced and Voiceless Sounds?

All of the 44 English speech sounds are created when air moves from the lungs through the mouth.

Some speech sounds are made when the voice box is turned on. This is called a “voiced” sound. Other speech sounds are made when the voice box is turned off. We call this an “unvoiced” or “voiceless” sound.

Differences Between Voiced and Voiceless Sounds

The difference between voiced and voiceless sounds is subtle, but easy to recognize!

🔊Voiced Sounds: These are the speech sounds you make when your vocal cords are moving to produce the sound. You can feel a vibration in your throat when you say them.

🔇 Voiceless Sounds: These are speech sounds you make when your vocal cords are NOT moving to produce the sound. No vibration occurs in your throat because the voice box is NOT activated.

Good news— students don’t need to memorize which sounds are voiced or voiceless. Instead, teach them to “test the sound.” They can do this in two simple ways:

1. Place a hand on their throat to feel if their voice box is turned on (vibrating) or off (not vibrating) and make the sound. If they feel a vibration, it’s a voiced sound. If they don’t, it’s a voiceless sound.
2. Cover their ears with their hands, make the sound, and listen for a muffled vibration, which indicates a voiced sound. If there is no muffling, then it’s a voiceless sound.

Voiced and Voiceless Consonants

The English language has two classes of sounds: vowel sounds and consonant sounds. These classes of sounds (vowels/consonants) are either voiced OR voiceless.

• All vowel sounds are voiced. This includes short, long, r-controlled, diphthong, and schwa sounds.
• Consonant sounds can be voiced OR voiceless.

Voiced consonant sounds include: /b/, /d/, /g/, /j/, /l/, /m/, /n/, /r/, /v/, /w/, /y/, /z/, /ng/ and /zh/ (like treasure), and th (like the).

Voiceless consonant sounds include: /k/, /f/, /h/, /p/, /s/, /t/, /ch/, /sh/, /wh/ /th/ (like thin).

Remember, while there are 44 sounds (phonemes) in English, there are over 250 ways to spell these sounds (graphemes). So while the above list includes sounds, it does not include the letter/s that represent these sounds.

👩🏼‍🏫 Teaching Tip: Using a sound wall helps students learn the connection between sounds and letters, building the alphabetic principle.

If you want to generalize which letters in the alphabet or common digraphs represent voiced sounds, they’d include these graphemes: a, e, i, o, u, b, d, g, j, l, m, n, qu, r, v, w, y, z, th (the).

And if you want to generalize which letters in the alphabet or common digraphs represent voiceless sounds, they’d include these graphemes: c, f, h, k, p, s, t, x, ch, sh, th (with)

More Information:

• The digraph th can represent both a voiced and voiceless sound. The sound is voiced in most function words like the, that, and there, and also when a final silent e follows the digraph like bathe or teethe.
• The letter X is the only English phoneme made up of TWO sounds /k/+/s/. Both of these sounds are voiceless, so for simplicity sake you can teach kids that the letter X represents a voiceless consonant sound.
• The letter S is the only single letter of the alphabet that can represent both a voiceless sound /s/ and a voiced sound /z/.
• The letter Q actually only represents the /k/ sound (voiceless). However, in English words the rule is “Never a Q without a U.” So, the sound most commonly associated with QU is actually two sounds /k/+/w/, said very quickly. Because the /w/ is voiced, you can teach that kids that QU represents a voiced sound.

Consonant Pairs

Consonant pairs, also called voiced/voiceless sound pairs, are pairs of consonant sounds that are made the same way in your mouth, but one sound is voiced and one is not.

Try it with the /s/ and /z/ sounds. These are considered consonant pairs because the sound is made the same way.

Look in a mirror and check it out. Look at and feel the position of your tongue and teeth. The same! Now, place your hand on your throat and make the /sssssss/ sound. Do the same thing with the /zzzzzzzz/ sound. What’s the only difference?

You should notice that the voice box is turned on when making the /z/ sound (voiced), and the voice box is off when making the /s/ sound (voiceless).

These sound pairs are important to teach because they help kids hear how similar sounds are used in words. Now they understand why some sound different—even though they’re made the same way.

Fun activity: Use a kazoo and have kids try to make the sounds. They’ll notice how the kazoo makes noise when making the voiced sound, and it stays silent when making the voiceless sound.

Why It’s Important

Understanding the difference between voiced and voiceless sounds plays a key role in developing clear speech and accurate articulation, and it improves overall literacy skills like phonemic awareness, reading, and spelling.

Speech & Articulation

Young children often mispronounce words as they’re building their vocabulary. For example, a child might say “van” instead of “fan.” These mistakes often happen because they haven’t yet learned to control or recognize voicing.

By explicitly teaching the difference—like how the voiced /v/ sound in van makes your throat vibrate, while the voiceless /f/ in fan does not—children can learn to produce sounds more accurately.

This awareness is especially important for:

• Children with articulation or speech delays
• English Language Learners (ELLs)

When students can feel and hear the difference, they’re more likely to self-correct, whiling building stronger phonological awareness skills.

Literacy Skills

👂 Phonemic Awareness: When students can hear and feel the difference between pairs like /s/ & /z/ or /k/ and /g/, they become more aware of the individual sounds in words — an essential foundation for both speaking and reading. Consider using to a sound wall to help support your students in this key area.

📖 Reading Accuracy: When kids understand how a sound is produced, they can match it more accurately to letters when reading.

📝 Spelling Accuracy: When spelling, kids need to choose the correct letters based on the sounds they hear. Voiced/Voiceless knowledge helps them distinguish between letters that sound similar but are represented with different graphemes.

This knowledge also helps with understanding suffixes. The pronunciation of these suffixes are based on whether the final sound of the base word is voiced or unvoiced.

Suffix -s

• cats – The suffix makes the voiceless sound /s/ because the last sound in the base word, /t/, is voiceless.
• dogs – The suffix makes the voiced sound /z/ because the last sound in the base word, /g/, is voiced.
  *Exception: Add suffix -es to words that end with a ‘hissing sound’ (s, x, z, ch, sh).

Suffix -ed

• walked – The suffix makes the voiceless sound /t/ because the last sound in the base word, /k/, is voiceless.
• begged – The suffix makes the voiced sound /d/ because the last sound in the base word, /g/, is voiced.
  *Exception: If a base word ends with the letters t or d, the suffix sounds like /id/.

Dig deeper: Read our articles about the three sounds of suffix -ed and suffix -s/es!

Related Resources

Want to learn more about how to practically teach voiced and unvoiced sounds?

We’re here to help! You’ll get lesson plans, worksheets, games, centers, and other printables to make your instruction and student practice seamless.

⬇️ Grab our Voiced and Voiceless Activities pack today!

More informational posts and resources you might like:

• All about Phonemes, Graphemes, and Morphemes
• Differences between Vowels and Consonants
• Best Strategies for Effective Spelling Instruction
• Decoding and Encoding
• 30 Best Tips for Teaching Letters & Sounds