Nonsense Word Fluency
I once had a parent volunteer ask me this question… “Why are we playing a game with these fake words? Don’t we have enough real words to practice?”
So, why do we want to practice nonsense word fluency? Aside from the point that it will increase test scores, it will strengthen a child’s ability to decode! Nonsense words follow predictable phonetic patterns that need to be strengthened by practice. Reading a word such as “trond” is a great method to practice the alphabetic principle while decoding an unknown word. It stretches the brain!
Reading fake words forces students to examine letters closely. It can be easily seen as a student attacks a nonsense word just how strong their letter sound knowledge is. It is a very effective way for teachers to quickly see how a student is applying skills taught. Is the student able to quickly attack the sound pattern? Are they able to quickly recall correct letter sounds? Can they easily blend sounds together?
Practicing nonsense words is also a great way to improve future reading ability! Students who practice decoding nonsense words can easily transfer that skill to the future reading of unknown multi-syllabic words. One study by Diliberto and et.al. (2009) concluded that students who practice syllabication skills by reading and spelling nonsense words made significantly greater improvements in word identification, word attack, and reading comprehension than their peers who did not have practice with pretend words.
On top of being beneficial to reading success, it is simply fun to play with newly acquired phonics skills. Your students will love working on decoding skills as they play these fun, and very affordable games. Our games are scripted so they are easy to prep, play, and deliver content with confidence!
