The Use of Nonsense Words for Phonemic Awareness Activities is Letrs: The Power of Nonsense Words for Phonemic Awareness Activities
Ivan Larsen 
The Use of Nonsense Words for Phonemic Awareness Activities is Letrs
If you’re searching for innovative ways to boost your child’s reading skills, you’ve landed in the right place. I’ll be diving into the world of nonsense words and their role in phonemic awareness activities.
Nonsense words, believe it or not, play a crucial part in helping kids develop strong reading abilities. They’re not just gibberish, but powerful tools for teaching kids how to decode unfamiliar words. In this article, we’ll explore some engaging activities using these unique words.
Stick around as I share my insights on how nonsense words can transform your child’s reading journey. Let’s uncover the magic behind these seemingly silly words and discover how they can make learning to read a fun and exciting adventure.
Phonemic Awareness Activities
Making Phonemic Awareness Activities fun and engaging is pivotal to a child’s reading development. It’s time to dive deeper into some practical ways to deploy nonsense words for this purpose.
Nonsense Words
Nonsense words or pseudo words can make phonemic awareness activities exciting for children. They’re words that have correct phonetic spelling but don’t have any recognizable meaning. Examples include blibber, zog, and flodge. These words provide a unique approach to teaching — they’re created to challenge children, making them look closer at phonetic patterns and sounds, without the distraction of an attached meaning.
I’ve seen firsthand how children light up with amusement when they encounter these unfamiliar words. However, it’s more than just about playfulness. Introducing nonsense words in phonemic awareness activities assists in children’s cognitive development. It allows young ones to make sense of the alphabetic principle, which is the relationship between spoken sounds and written symbols.
Benefits of Nonsense Words
Nurturing a child’s phonemic awareness with nonsense words can shape their reading abilities. Here’s a quick look into the possible benefits:
- Improves Phonemic Decoding: Nonsense words encourage children to rely heavily on their phonemic decoding skills. They can’t predict the word based on familiarity, so they have to sound it out— a key competency in establishing sound reading skills.
- Boosts Confidence in Reading Unfamiliar Words: As children encounter numerous unfamiliar words when reading, having experience with nonsense words prepares them to confidently tackle any new words they encounter.
- Provides Safe Learning Environment: With no right or wrong answers, nonsense words create a safe learning environment. Children can explore and experiment with sounds without the fear of making a mistake.
It’s essential to remember that every child differs in their learning rate and style. Engagement with phonemic awareness activities leveraging nonsense words can, therefore, differ. I recommend trying different approaches and gauging the child’s response. The main aim should be to foster the joy and engagement with reading while developing essential phonemic skills.
How to Use Nonsense Words for Phonemic Awareness Activities
Creating Nonsense Words
Creating nonsense words can be a rhyme-filled, fun activity that engages the kids. Here’re some parts that you may find effective.
- Segment all sounds in a word. For instance, take any common english word, let’s say ‘hat’. Next, change one or two sounds to create a non-word. Swapping ‘H’ with ‘Z’ gives us “zat”, a fun nonsense word that still holds the phonemic structure of the original word.
Another method you might incorporate is using blocks or letters on paper to visually represent the sounds. This allows children to manipulate sounds, continually creating and reading nonsense words.
Read Aloud and Identify Nonsense Words
Another engaging activity is ‘Find the Nonsense’, where the kids read from a text sprinkled with nonsense words. This activity not only trains their ability to decode but also boosts their confidence in tackling unfamiliar vocabulary.
For instance, you could start a story
“In the land of Zork, lived a critous beast named Brango.”
Immediately, the kids will identify “Zork”, “critous”, and “Brango” as novelty words and try to decipher them using their phonetic skills.
Rhyming with Nonsense Words
Although rhyme activities may sound elementary, combining them with nonsense words can create a unique opportunity for phonemic awareness development. For example, if we take the nonsense word ‘clope’, we could ask the kids to find or fabricate rhyming nonsense words. The children might come up with choices such as ‘glope’, ‘slope’, or ‘trope’.
While these words do not have meaning, their rhyme and usage within a sentence can signal to the children that these are indeed ‘words’. It also further helps them understand the phonetic structure underlying every word, real or nonsense.
