Nonsense words are not real words but they follow common patterns of English spelling. They can also be referred to as pseudowords or nonwords. Some examples of nonsense words include tibble and streck.
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Over the years, I’ve heard both sides of the argument:
- Working with nonsense words is a waste of time because children need to learn to recognize real words.
- Children benefit from reading nonsense words because it mimics reading unfamiliar words and improves decoding skills.
Are either of these accurate? Read on to separate fact from fiction and decide how you can effectively use nonsense words in your reading instruction.
Personally, I shied away from using nonsense words after reading the first argument above but then I learned that nonsense words do have a place in our reading instruction. Consider this quote from David Kilpatrick’s book, Equipped for Reading Success:
As I explain to my elementary students, reading and spelling nonsense words strengthens your ability to read and spell unfamiliar words. As my students prepare to work with multisyllabic words, I also explain that many syllables in multisyllabic words are “nonsense.” Think of the syllable lect in col•lect•ed. This means that reading and spelling nonsense words also strengthens their ability to read and spell longer words.
So we do want our children to know how to decode nonsense words, but not at the expense of neglecting opportunities to orthographically map real words. As teachers, we need to strike the right balance. If our goal is for students to orthographically map the sounds in real words so they can instantly recognize them (a.k.a. gain them as sight words), then we don’t want to spend too much of our precious instructional time on nonsense words.
What about assessing with nonsense words?
Assessing with nonsense words provides more value than teaching with nonsense words. According to Ravthon (2004), “pseudoword decoding is the best single predictor of word identification for both poor and normal readers.” Furthermore, “difficulty in pseudoword reading is also the single most reliable indicator of reading disabilities.”
I’ve had children fly through real word decoding assessments with great scores but then they would struggle with simple nonsense words like niff and bleck. This is why error analysis on a nonsense word assessment is vital– it tells me which phonics rules or syllable types the student needs to learn. It might also clue me in to that fact that the child has been memorizing words by sight with visual memory instead of mapping the letter/sound connections. For example, if a student can easily read the words play, day, and say but cannot read the words fay or tay, then they likely have memorized play, day, and say by sight without ever making the connection that the vowel team ay represents the long a sound.
On the other hand, if a student can successfully decode nonsense words across the syllable types, then I know they have a solid base of phonics skills and orthographic knowledge, which is knowledge of the letters and letter combinations that can be used to represent sounds. For example, if a student can read bleigh to rhyme with sleigh, they probably understand that eigh represents the long a sound.
Let’s go back to the Kilpatrick quote for a moment:
“Every new word a student encounters is functionally a nonsense word until he or she has successfully figured it out.”
We all want our students to have the skills necessary to confidently approach unfamiliar words, right? Consider this: As adults, we know that kelp is a type of seaweed but our students may approach the same word as a nonsense word if they have not heard it or seen it in print. When a reader of any age encounters an unfamiliar word or a nonsense word, they must approach the word in the same way: use phonics skills and orthographic knowledge to decode. If the unfamiliar word is a real word, the reader may receive some support from their oral vocabulary in a scenario like this: the student attempts to decode the word and realizes it sound like a word he or she has heard before. They can then match the letters and sounds with more ease.
Assessing nonsense words in older readers
Decoding assessments for older readers is my favorite way to utilize nonsense words! You may have worked with a student who has memorized many words by sight but struggles to decode unfamiliar words. This student may be what is called a “compensator.” According to Kilpatrick (2016), compensators are children who develop ineffective reading habits to get by and then plateau later on because they did not develop effective strategies to identify unfamiliar words. Many of these children memorized words by sight instead of making letter-sound connections and they may rely heavily on context and illustrations to make good guesses. When I was completing academic evaluations in a school that used the Leveled Literacy Intervention program for Title I students, I met many compensators because the LLI program uses the three-cueing method, which actually teaches children to use ineffective word recognition strategies.
By assessing nonsense word reading, you can get a truer picture of the compensating child’s decoding skills and orthographic knowledge because you can be sure that they did not memorize the nonsense words by sight before they were asked to decode them.
How can I assess nonsense word reading skills?
A few years ago, I asked myself the same question! I did not have access to an assessment, so I made one. More recently, I polished it up and made it available on TPT. The assessment is essentially divided by syllable types:
- closed syllables with three sounds (CVC words, included digraphs)
- closed syllable with consonant blends
- silent e words
- basic vowel teams
- advanced vowel teams
- r-controlled vowels
- consonant le words (includes open syllables)
The student word list uses clear 24-point font and the words are well-spaced to prevent visual crowding. No distracting designs or clip art!
The teacher scoring sheet is simple and easy to use. It will help you complete error analysis to decide where to begin your instruction. There is a place to mark:
- incorrect responses
- the student’s accuracy rate
- if the student read with automaticity
What should I do after I assess nonsense word reading skills?
If your student struggled to decode nonsense words, note which syllable type(s) were challenging for your student and begin your instruction with the first list they began to struggle with. Suppose your student is the type who already has many words memorized by sight. In that case, you may need a heavier focus on unfamiliar words and nonsense words to allow them the opportunity to apply their newly learned decoding skills.
Consider not only teaching the letter-sound correspondences required to accurately decode the syllable type but also consider completing an assessment of the child’s phonemic awareness skills. If your student has a weakness in phonemic awareness skills, it will be challenging for them to hear and manipulate the individual sounds within the unfamiliar words you are asking them to read and spell.
What questions do you still have?
I’d love to hear from you! If you want clarification on anything in this post, if I did not mention something you are wondering about, or if you want to chat about a specific student you have in mind, reach out to me! I would love to start connecting with people through this relatively new blog.
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Sources:
Rathvon, N. (2004). Early reading assessment: A practitioner’s handbook. Guilford Press.
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