Nonsense Words

Go through these twenty real words with your child before you print anything else. Point to each card and ask your child to say each sound, then the whole word. The set covers short-vowel word families (cat, pig, hot), the digraphs (ship, chop, thin, whip, duck) and two-letter blends (frog, crab, slip, stop).

If your child sounds them out correctly, they do not need nonsense words. Keep reading real words together. If a particular sound trips them up, such as ch or the r-blends, print the drill set for that sound below.

Real words: cat, hat, sat, mat, bat, rat. Made-up: glat, smat, snat, trat. Every word ends in -at, so your child blends a new beginning onto the same ending each time. More real -at words, with their own worksheets, are in the CVC word families.

Real words: can, fan, man, pan, ran. Made-up: glan, slan, dran, sman, snan. Every word ends in -an, so your child blends a new beginning onto the same ending each time.

Real words: cap, map, nap, tap, lap. Made-up: vap, glap, smap, spap, drap. Every word ends in -ap, so your child blends a new beginning onto the same ending each time.

Real words: big, dig, pig, wig, fig. Made-up: hig, lig, yig, blig, flig. Every word ends in -ig, so your child blends a new beginning onto the same ending each time.

Real words: sit, hit, bit, fit, pit. Made-up: vit, yit, glit, plit, stit. Every word ends in -it, so your child blends a new beginning onto the same ending each time.

Real words: pin, bin, fin, win, tin. Made-up: flin, plin, glin, drin, stin. Every word ends in -in, so your child blends a new beginning onto the same ending each time.

Real words: hop, mop, top, pop, cop. Made-up: jop, vop, yop, zop, blop. Every word ends in -op, so your child blends a new beginning onto the same ending each time.

Real words: hot, pot, dot, not, cot. Made-up: zot, glot, smot, drot, vot. Every word ends in -ot, so your child blends a new beginning onto the same ending each time.

Real words: bug, hug, mug, rug, jug. Made-up: zug, wug, yug, blug, flug. Every word ends in -ug, so your child blends a new beginning onto the same ending each time.

Real words: sun, fun, bun, run, nun. Made-up: lun, vun, zun, blun, flun. Every word ends in -un, so your child blends a new beginning onto the same ending each time.

Real words: ship, shop, fish, dish, shed. Made-up: shib, shom, shup, vesh, zosh. The two letters sh make one sound, so your child says it as one sound, not two. More real sh words, with their own worksheets, are on the sh words list.

Real words: chin, chop, much, rich, chip. Made-up: chib, chom, chup, vech, yoch. The two letters ch make one sound, so your child says it as one sound, not two. More real ch words, with their own worksheets, are on the ch words list.

Real words: thin, bath, math, with, moth. Made-up: thib, thom, thup, veth, zith. The two letters th make one sound, so your child says it as one sound, not two. More real th words, with their own worksheets, are on the th words list.

Real words: when, whip, whiz, wham, whim. Made-up: whab, whep, whod, whug, whog. The two letters wh make one sound, so your child says it as one sound, not two. More real wh words, with their own worksheets, are on the wh words list.

Real words: duck, back, sock, kick, neck. Made-up: vack, zeck, yick, vock, jeck. The two letters ck make one sound, so your child says it as one sound, not two. More real ck words, with their own worksheets, are on the ck words list.

Real words: flag, clap, sled, plum, glad. Made-up: blim, glep, plib, flom, slen. The two consonants at the start keep both of their sounds, so your child says each one and slides them together. More real l-blend words, with their own worksheets, are on the l-blend words list.

Real words: crab, frog, drum, grin, trip. Made-up: brip, crob, drob, grem, trib. The two consonants at the start keep both of their sounds, so your child says each one and slides them together. More real r-blend words, with their own worksheets, are on the r-blend words list.

Real words: stop, snap, swim, spin, smug. Made-up: smib, snom, spob, stup, swid. The two consonants at the start keep both of their sounds, so your child says each one and slides them together. More real s-blend words, with their own worksheets, are on the s-blend words list.

The drill is for a child who knows the basic letter sounds but finds it hard to segment and blend them. The same steps are on the last page of every set.

1. Isolate the sounds. Your child points under each letter and says each sound aloud: /s/ /i/ /g/. Two letters such as sh or ck make one sound.
2. Blend them together. Your child slides the sounds smoothly into one word: “sig”.
3. Move on. Next card. If your child gets stuck, say the sounds with them, blend it once together, and go to the next card.

Keep it to one minute. Set a timer, go through as many cards as you can, and stop when it rings. Repeat the same set on another day. The goal is comfort with segmenting and blending, so smooth matters more than fast.

Watch for memorizing. The made-up words are there to make your child think and sound them out. If your child starts reading a made-up card instantly from memory, switch to a different set, or mix two sets together.

Tell your child which words are made up. Every made-up card has a small made-up mark in the corner. Call them the names of tiny aliens.

Stop when the sounds are easy. Once your child reads real words with that sound without help, put the set away and move to real words and books.

These are not practice for a school reading screener. The University of Oregon, which publishes the DIBELS screener, says in the license on its test materials that “practice and coaching on the materials will invalidate the results.” What the screener measures is in DIBELS explained for parents.