Nonsense Words Aren’t Nonsense!
I have come to the realization that nonsense words are misunderstood and do not get the respect they deserve. This is very unfortunate. This blog will explain my understanding of nonsense words, their importance, and how I address nonsense words with students.
nonsense words
WHAT ARE NONSENSE WORDS?
Nonsense Words - spoken or written words that have no meaning or make no sense.
I have also seen the term “pseudowords”.
Pseudowords - a string of letters that is pronounceable and conforms to the English orthographic pattern and is pronounceable, but has no meaning.
I define nonsense as being something that is silly or foolish…
BUT there is nothing silly or foolish about “nonsense words”.
NONSENSE WORD ASSESSMENTS
A common practice in schools, that regularly screen and assess progress towards mastery of foundational reading skills, is to have students read a series of nonsense words. Being able to read/decode these words with accuracy and fluency shows that learned phonetic decoding skills are being applied.
If you administer an assessment like DIBELS, students are given a list of nonsense words to decode that looks like this…
nonsense words
Notice that the words above are a combination of CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words with Magic-e Long Vowel and R-controlled Vowel words. Also included, based on grade level, are words with blends and digraphs, vowel teams, etc.
What I realized after multiple administrations of this assessment over the years is that many of the nonsense words on the benchmark and progress monitoring assessments are actually SYLLABLES - smaller parts of bigger words.
Nug is the first syllable in nugget
Rab is the first syllable of rabbit.
Sem - semester
Ped - root meaning foot
The CVC words are closed syllables
The Magic -e words are Magic -e syllables
and so on…
While not ALL words on a nonsense word assessment are syllables, I prefer to explain it this way to the students I am assessing. It is important for them to understand these words are important, they have value, and when combined together, they have meaning. There’s no nonsense in that.
READING UNFAMILIAR WORDS
Young readers are faced with unfamiliar words on a daily basis as they learn to read.
Example: On a UFLI Roll and Read activity, the list of words on the first grade review of short “a” include:
gag jab nab dab fad vat zap yap
These are all real words. But not to most first graders. To them, these are likely nonsense words. They have no meaning because they are not part of their oral language vocabulary…yet.
Even proficient readers see unfamiliar words and must have a very specific set of skills to read them. Proficient readers, like you and me, may encounter single syllable or multisyllabic words that are unfamiliar.
flotsam capstan execrable nonce peduncle
Recently, while completing a professional development module to improve my practices and help my English Language Learners, I came across the word “cognate”. I had never seen this word, I did not know its meaning, BUT I could read it! Thanks Mrs. Gardner and Mrs. Fields! (My kindergarten and first grade teachers that taught me to read in 1975 and 1976 using phonics). I proceeded to use my context clues to determine meaning, then looked the word up to verify my understanding.
Cognate - “A cognate is a word that is related in origin to another word, such as the English word brother and the German word bruder, or the English word history and the Spanish word historia. The words were derived from the same source; thus, they are cognates (like cousins tracing their ancestry).” - www.thoughtco.com
USING NONSENSE WORDS IN YOUR INSTRUCTION
I have seen heated discussions about whether or not teachers should intentionally use nonsense words in direct instruction. WELL, based on my statements above about students encountering unfamiliar words in their reading on a daily basis, “nonsense words” are already part of your instruction.
In my personal, professional opinion I do not believe that a teacher should intentionally provide instruction/practice of nonsense words with the purpose of improving scores on a universal screener or diagnostic assessment. Including nonsense words or unfamiliar words for the purpose of familiarity and for informal assessment of decoding skills is completely fine.
SAMPLE LESSON - GRADE 2 BELOW PROFICIENT READERS
As an instructional specialist providing multi-tiered support, I have small groups of students needing intervention or remediation of reading skills. My current 2nd grade group is working on proficiency and accuracy of reading unfamiliar single syllable and multisyllabic words needed to assist their reading comprehension.
We use IMSE Orton Gillingham as our primary instruction grades K-2.
To help my intervention group feel comfortable attacking big words, rather than decoding the beginning of the word and then just guessing, I created the lesson below.
STEP 1 - We reviewed the various syllable types they have learned through Tier 1 reading instruction in their classrooms. I posted each syllable type on a magnetic white board. Students were given sets of words to read, sort, and hang by their syllable type.
nonsense words
STEP 2 - Once this process was complete and thoroughly discussed, each student was given another set of “words” to read and sort. These words were different. They were not full words like the ones in STEP 1. They were true SYLLABLES. SOME could be read as real words. MANY were nonsense words. This was a challenge. For this group, when faced with unfamiliar words, they become less confident. With support, students read, sorted and hung their syllables.
nonsense words
STEP 3 - After the syllables were sorted correctly, I demonstrated how various syllables could be combined together to make words.
nonsense words
STEP 4 - The next day, the kids were given a new set of syllables to read, sort, and combine together to make words. They worked as a group and loved it because they could successfully create and read BIG WORDS!
This blog is intended to help teachers understand that nonsense words have value. Ensuring that students have the skills to read unfamiliar words (that may seem like nonsense to them) is essential.
We need students to feel comfortable and confident while reading, regardless of the words they encounter. The process of breaking multisyllabic words down into syllables to read them will be addressed in another blog post.
