Nonsense words aren’t part of anyone’s daily vocabulary, yet they follow the same spelling patterns as real English words. You might also hear them called pseudowords or nonwords. Some examples are tibble or streck.
In the world of phonics instruction, they spark surprising debate. Some educators argue that nonsense words are a waste of precious instructional minutes because students need to focus on real words. Others believe nonsense words are a powerful way to strengthen decoding skills and prepare students to read unfamiliar words in the wild.
So, who’s right? In this post, we’ll look at what research says, what I’ve seen in my own teaching, and how you can use nonsense words strategically to boost reading progress. I’ll also share a quick, no-prep nonsense word assessment you can use to see exactly where your students stand.
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Why I Changed My Mind About Nonsense Words
At first, I avoided nonsense words for exactly the same reason many teachers do: I believed students should spend their time reading real words, since that’s what we encounter in everyday text. The argument seemed airtight. But as I continued learning, I discovered that nonsense words actually play an important role in literacy instruction. Consider this quote from David Kilpatrick’s book, Equipped for Reading Success:
As I explain to my students, reading and spelling nonsense words is like a workout: it 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 tas in fan•tas•tic.) 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 read and spell 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.
Nonsense Word Assessments: What the Research Says
Do you see why teaching with nonsense words is useful? Well, assessing with them might be an even bigger game changer! According to Rathvon (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.” Given how valuable nonsense word reading data is for identifying reading challenges, it makes sense to include nonsense word assessments in your toolkit.
I’ve worked with students who breezed through real-word decoding assessments with excellent scores, yet stumbled over simple but uncommon words like rift and drab. Because they had never encountered these words before, and lacked a solid foundation in closed syllable decoding strategies, they couldn’t rely on familiarity to read them. This is where error analysis on a nonsense word assessment becomes so valuable. It reveals which phonics rules or syllable types a student still needs to master. It can also expose when a child is memorizing words visually rather than orthographically mapping the letter–sound connections. For example, if a student can easily read play, day, and say but cannot read fay or tay, it’s a sign they’ve memorized the first set of words by sight without realizing that the vowel team ay consistently represents the long /ā/ sound.
On the other hand, if a student can successfully decode nonsense words across the syllable types, then I know they have a solid foundation of decoding skills and orthographic knowledge, or 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 about nonsense words 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 confidently approach unfamiliar words, right? When readers of any age come across an unfamiliar or nonsense word, they must use phonics skills and orthographic knowledge to decode it.
Consider this: as adults, we know that kelp is a type of seaweed. But students who haven’t heard or seen the word before may treat it like a nonsense word. If the unfamiliar word is real, readers can sometimes rely on their oral vocabulary for support. For example, a student might decode the word, realize it sounds like something they’ve heard before, and then match the letters and sounds more easily. In this scenario, the child is using their strong oral language skills to support their decoding.
However, when we assess using nonsense words, we remove the chance to rely on oral vocabulary, picture cues, or context clues. This gives us a crystal-clear picture of a student’s decoding skills by forcing them to truly decode the word.
How Nonsense Word Assessments Reveal Hidden Gaps in Older Readers
Decoding assessments for older readers are my favorite way to use nonsense words. You may have worked with a student who has memorized many words by sight but struggles to decode unfamiliar ones. This type of student may be a “compensator.” According to Kilpatrick (2016), compensators are children who develop ineffective reading habits to get by, but later plateau because they never developed efficient strategies for identifying unfamiliar words. Many compensators memorize words by sight rather than making letter–sound connections, relying heavily on context and illustrations to make educated 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. LLI uses the three-cueing method, which actually teaches children to use ineffective word recognition strategies. Many of these students blossomed once they were given explicit instruction grounded in a structured literacy approach.
By assessing nonsense word reading, you get a more accurate picture of a compensator’s decoding skills and orthographic knowledge because you can be certain they haven’t already memorized the nonsense words before being asked to read them.
My Go-To Method for Assessing Nonsense Word Reading Skills
When I first needed to assess nonsense word reading skills, I couldn’t find a reliable tool so I created my own. Over time, I refined and polished this assessment, and now it’s available on TPT with a 4.9-star rating from educators who’ve found it invaluable.
Teachers love how easy it is to use immediately. As Shelly C. shared, it’s “super easy to print and use right away” and “very helpful to find gaps in decoding knowledge, which allows you to group students accordingly for support.” Jennifer B. appreciated that it “helped me to easily collect data for my progress reports,” while Patricia C. said it’s “easy to administer” and “gave me a good basis for grouping students based on need.”
The assessment is carefully organized by syllable types to provide clear insights into each student’s decoding abilities:
- closed syllables with three sounds (CVC words, including 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 features large, clear 24-point font and ample spacing, with no distracting clip art or designs.
The teacher scoring sheet is simple and easy to use, guiding you through error analysis to pinpoint where instruction should begin. It includes sections to record:
- incorrect responses
- the student’s accuracy rate
- whether the student read with automaticity
Next Steps After Assessing Nonsense Word Reading Skills
If your student struggled to decode nonsense words, note which syllable type(s) were challenging and begin instruction with skills from the first list where they showed difficulty. If your student tends to memorize many words by sight, you may need to focus more heavily on unfamiliar and nonsense words to give them opportunities to apply newly learned decoding skills.
Be sure to teach not only the letter–sound correspondences needed to decode each syllable type but also consider assessing the student’s phonemic awareness. If your student has weaknesses in phonemic awareness, they will find it difficult to hear and manipulate the individual sounds within unfamiliar words they are asked to read and spell.
Got Questions About Nonsense Words? Ask Away!
I’d love to hear from you! If you want clarification on anything in this post, have questions I didn’t cover, or want to chat about a specific student, feel free to reach out anytime. I’m always excited to connect with readers and support your teaching journey.
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Sources:
Rathvon, N. (2004). Early reading assessment: A practitioner’s handbook. Guilford Press.
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