Why do we teach nonsense words? It doesn’t make sense.

Do you teach and assess nonsense words?  Do you know why you do it?  

There’s a reason why we teach these types of non-words in schools. In fact, teaching nonsense words can actually help improve reading skills. They are not tied to curricular content and are out of context, but they can reveal a great deal about your students and their level of phonetic knowledge.

A couple of years ago I had the unique opportunity to loop up with a handful of students from Kindergarten to Second Grade.  I taught the full class in Kindergarten, then next year taught a 1/2 combo class, and the following year a straight 2nd-grade class.  I had some students for three straight years and it was really interesting to see their reading progress from non-readers to reading multisyllabic words.

Reading Acquisition: Stage Model and the Non-Stage Model

Before we go too much further let me explain two different models or viewpoints on reading acquisition.  

The basic gist of it is that the Stage Model says that children move through stages in their progression of learning to read and that readers at different levels will use different strategies to approach unknown words.  As unskilled readers learn to read, they change the strategies they use because the new strategies are more efficient and effective.

The Non-Stage model says that all readers will use the same strategies to decode print and the primary strategy is context.  That’s not to say students don’t use phonetic knowledge to decode, but that the primary method is context.  In other words, when approaching an unknown word, students will use context first, before tapping into their phonics knowledge.

For now, know that there are two different models. Which model you follow in your teaching of reading will influence how you read this post on nonsense words.

The Science of Reading follows the stage model.

What are nonsense words?

Nonsense words are words that don’t have any real meaning. They are usually used to teach and assess decoding. For example, “blork” is a nonsense word that doesn’t mean anything.

A List of Nonsense Words

Are you looking for a list of nonsense words? Really, there is no one list that encompasses them all. Why? Because you can change any real word into a nonsense word by changing one or two letters in it.

Take the word rat, for example. Change one of the letters to make a nonsense word. What did you come up with? How about the word lat or wat? Let’s do a harder word. Try the word wait. Can you make a nonsense word out of it? What about tait or dait or vait?

I have a resource that practices many CVC nonsense words. Included is a list of CVC nonsense words.

Why teach and assess nonsense words? Why are they important?

Below are a few reasons why you might teach and assess these words.  Most of the following reasons come from the perspective of being a second-grade teacher and watching students struggle to accurately read syllables in multisyllabic words because of their lack of phonics skills.

CVC Nonsense words are a syllable that helps students learn to decode larger words

When teaching phonemic awareness, we often break words into syllables. We have students clap syllables, jump on each syllable, or do something else to signify the number of syllables in a word. We work with syllables orally during phonemic awareness, but this oral practice transfers to reading words.

When we teach reading to young children, we start with short vowels. Each vcv word is a syllable. However, not all syllables are real words. this is where nonsense words come into play.

Nonsense words are precursors to reading words in chunks or by syllables.

Do kindergarteners need to read multisyllabic words yet?  No.  But, their brains are developing muscle memory and patterns of reading.  The work they are doing now, to read nonsense words will help them read multisyllabic words next year.

When students practice reading words that are not real, they are practicing an important reading skill: breaking apart a word into syllables or sounds that may not hold meaning by itself. Even though the syllable may not hold meaning, it still, generally, follows the rules of phonics.

Teaching children the common chunks of words or nonsense words for decoding, helps them recognize those chunks in larger words. Nonsense words are generally taught in Kindergarten when learning to decode CVC words. However, in first grade, when students are reading two-syllable words, students will depend on their early reading practice and muscle memory.

Nonsense words are fun!

My five-year-old is continually making up new sounds. He says a sentence then changes one word in the sentence to some silly one-syllable nonsense word. It cracks him up every time.

They’re just plain fun.

For some kids, it might be the hook they need to have fun with reading and remember the sound patterns.  The more fun you can have in the classroom, the more likely students will remember what you are teaching them.

Nonsense words reveal a student’s ability to decode a word

Can a student say the individual phonemes of a word and blend them together? Do they know the most common sounds for the letters?

Nonsense words follow predictable phonetic patterns. If students have learned the common sounds of the words, they can reveal the depth of their learning in a quick assessment. Assessing these words gives you an idea of what the student might need to work on next.

Nonsense Words Take the Guess Work out of Reading

These words are also good for students who tend to guess at words. If you tell a student that the word is not real and won’t make sense, it takes the guesswork out of reading and helps the student focus on the sounds in it.  A student is more likely to focus on the sounds if they aren’t trying to guess the word.

Nonsense Words Provide Additional Practice

These words are a good way to establish the alphabetic principle and to practice encoding and decoding. What does this mean? Basically, they help students learn good phonics skills.

Students need to be able to decode and blend words they do not know since they will continue to encounter new words for the rest of their reading life. Students also need to decode words that are not in their vocabulary. It’s part of vocabulary learning. Knowing how to read unfamiliar words, even if they have no meaning to them, yet, is part of being a good reader.

A caution about nonsense words

Don’t let the teaching of nonsense words outweigh the teaching of real words and authentic experiences with language. There are plenty of kids who have learned to read without being taught these types of words.

Do nonsense words help students connect phonemes and read larger, multisyllabic words, yes. Are they necessary to become a good reader, no.  Not every child learned to read using nonsense words.

If a student can read these types of words as whole words or units, there’s no need to practice reading them. Most of the students’ practice of reading should be real words, in contexts that build meaning and comprehension, balanced with targeted phonics instruction where they are taught to blend and segment sounds.

If a student is struggling to decode real words, then practice with nonsense words alongside continual feedback might be a good intervention.

How do you teach nonsense words?

Any way you can.

Teach them the same way you teach CVC words. Be sure that students have the foundational skills in place, that they can blend and segment phonemes orally (without print), and that they know the sounds of the letters in each nonsense word.

Then, provide a lot of fun practice in any way you can.

Do you have unique ways to practice these words?  I’d love to hear what they are!  Leave a comment below and let me know what works for your students and your classroom.

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Are you interested in helping your students blend words?