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Sound It Out
Along with her background as a researcher, writer, and teacher, Joanne Meier is a mom. Join Joanne every week as she shares her experiences raising her own young readers, and guides parents and teachers on the best practices in reading.
Nonsense, as in nonsense words
Mog.
Fim.
Phum.
Sote.
Pagbo.
Just a few examples of the types of words students are asked to read on a Nonsense Word assessment. Some assessments are timed (how many nonsense words can you read in one minute?), and some assessments use a ceiling (stop when the student incorrectly reads 5 in a row).
Nonsense word measures are one part of DIBELS, a widely-used assessment for young children, they're one part of the Orton Gillingham approach to teaching reading, and are one part of most diagnostic work done with struggling readers.
Nonsense word lists and task are also finding their way into general education classrooms as part of curriculum based measures. At this point, teachers often balk. "I want kids to read for meaning. There's no meaning in this!"
Nonsense word fluency measures a student's ability to decode individual phonemes and then blend them together to read. They're an indicator of a student's progress in acquiring early alphabetic principle skills. By using nonsense words, we can find out whether a child knows the most common sound for letters (letter–sound correspondence), and whether a child can blend the sounds to read words he has never seen before.
So, nonsense word reading works really well as a quick, reliable, and valid way of assessing part of the alphabetic principle. BUT, we can teach and develop the alphabetic principle without ever explicitly teaching nonsense word reading. Hooray!
I'm so glad you mentioned two things, Ashley. First, conveying the purpose of nonsense words to students, and second that you provide decoding practice with real words. To me, both are critical.
Posted by: Joanne | November 28, 2007 10:08 AMNonsense word reading is not only important to determine a child's knowledge of the code. I use nonsense word lists when I work with children who make wild guesses when they read. Reading nonsense words force students to use their phonic knowledge to decode accurately. These nonsense words are paired with similarly constructed real words so students understand better how to apply these skills when they read. Single and multisyllable words are used.
Posted by: Judy | January 23, 2008 10:33 PMI completely agree. In fact, all of us learn reading through nonsense words because, at one time or another, all words were "nonsense" at some point. We learn to attack words this way. Good stuff.
Swen Nater
Seattle
Comments
When I was first introduced to nonsense words I found them to be silly and really did not see the purpose! After playing with the words I find them to be very useful and fun. I feel it is important to convey the purpose of the nonsense words to the students. If the students are aware of the importannce of utilizing decoding skills when reading, nonsense words serve as a great learning tool. My students love to time themselves when they read nonsense words. We also practice the same decoding skills with real words.
Posted by: Ashley | November 26, 2007 11:22 PM