What Are Nonsense Words?

Nonsense words are made-up words built from real phonics patterns, like mip, zot or vap. A child cannot have memorized a made-up word or guessed it from a picture, so the only way to read one is to sound it out. That is why they turn up on reading screeners and, now and then, on homework.

Most typically developing readers do not need nonsense words, though they can help at times with segmenting and blending sounds. They are most useful for children who struggle to blend sounds, and for children with articulation difficulties or other speech-sound issues. If you use them, tell your child every time that the word is made up, keep it to a one-minute round, and stop once the sounds are mastered.

Looking for the words themselves? The nonsense words list has them by sound pattern, with printable worksheets.

Examples of nonsense words

Nonsense words are made-up words that follow the spelling patterns children are taught, so they can be sounded out even though they mean nothing. They are also called pseudowords or made-up words, and teachers often call them “alien words”.

A few examples, from easiest up:

Pattern	Made-up words	A real word with the same pattern
Short vowel (CVC)	mip, zot, vap, lun	fig, hot, nap, sun
With a blend	blim, plib	slim, plum
With a digraph	chup, shom	chin, shop
Silent e	vake, jome	cake, home

Every one can be read with the sounds a child is taught for that pattern, and none of them is a real word. That is the whole design.

Why do schools use made-up words?

Because a made-up word is the cleanest test of sounding out. A real word might already be known by sight, guessed from a picture or filled in from the story. A made-up word removes all three.

England’s Year 1 phonics screening check is built this way: 20 real words and 20 made-up ones. The made-up words “provide the purest assessment of phonic decoding because they will be new to all children,” according to the assessment framework from the Department for Education. In US schools, the same idea is the Nonsense Word Fluency part of a DIBELS screening. The University of Oregon, which publishes DIBELS, calls it a “pure” measure “because vocabulary and sight word knowledge cannot play a role.” Reading researcher Timothy Shanahan puts it plainly: a nonsense word measure gives “a purer look at how well students can decode.”

The same logic is behind the made-up words in our own check for children who guess at words.

Does every child need to practice nonsense words?

No. Most typically developing readers do not need nonsense words. A child who can read a real word they have never seen before, like nap, fig or mud, is already sounding out. Real words practice the same sounds and mean something, which is why reading specialists default to them. Linda Diamond and Holly Lane sum up the usual advice as “teach decoding as much as possible with real words, assess using pseudowords.” Lane directs the University of Florida Literacy Institute. A 2014 study of kindergartners by Keri Madsen at the University of Florida found made-up words just as effective as real words for early decoding, not more.

Even so, they can help at times with segmenting and blending. Say a made-up word and have your child tap one finger for each sound, or say three sounds and have them blend the word. With no meaning to lean on, your child has to listen to every sound. Our rhyming guide uses made-up rhymes the same way.

They are most useful for two groups of children.

• Children who struggle to blend sounds. A made-up word strips the task down to the sounds, with no memory of the word to reach for. Diamond and Lane, citing dyslexia researcher Tim Odegard, trace the case for them to “readers who need a lot of repetitions to consolidate learning.”
• Children with articulation difficulties or other speech-sound issues. Made-up syllables and words let one sound be practiced before a familiar word is in play. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association describes speech-sound practice that moves through “increasingly challenging levels,” from syllables to words, sentences and conversation. A speech-language pathologist sets that practice. Phonological processes and minimal pairs explain the speech side.

This is our advice rather than a research finding. We found no study showing that practicing made-up words beats practicing real words, so we keep them for the children above and keep the dose small.

Not sure which child you have? If your child knows their letter sounds but cannot push them together, start with my child knows letter sounds but cannot sound out words.

Is it a problem that nonsense words are not real?

Not if your child knows it. The worries parents raise most are fair, and each has a short answer.

Will it confuse my child? Tell your child every time that the word is made up: the name of a tiny alien, or a silly word. England’s check does exactly this. The administration guidance from the Standards and Testing Agency has the teacher say, “The words on this side are not real words. They are names for types of imaginary creatures,” and shows a picture of a creature beside each one.

Do nonsense words build vocabulary? No. A made-up word has no meaning, so it cannot teach one. Vocabulary comes from talking, reading aloud together, and real books.

Could they mix up real spellings? They could, if a child practiced a lot of them. Reading researcher Timothy Shanahan, replying to readers of his 2016 post on teaching nonsense words, warns that teaching with them “may be misleading to kids in terms of real pronunciations and spellings.” That is the reason to label them, keep them few, and stop early.

How to use nonsense words at home

Check first, then drill one sound at a time, one minute a round. Start by asking your child to sound out a handful of real words with the same patterns. If they read those correctly, they do not need nonsense words. If a sound trips them up, mix real and made-up words for that one sound. Tell your child which ones are made up (“this one is an alien’s name”), and go through them like this:

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

Keep each round to one minute at most, then stop, and repeat on another day. The goal is comfort with segmenting and blending, so smooth matters more than fast. If your child starts reading a made-up word instantly from memory, switch to a different set or mix two sets together. The point is to make them sound it out.

If your child reads mip as “mop”, they read the first letter and guessed the rest; why children guess at words covers what to do about that.

The drill cards by word family, digraph and blend start with a real-word check.

When should you stop using nonsense words?

As soon as your child blends the sounds you were practicing, switch to real words with the same pattern. Made-up words have done their job once the sounds are there. They also skip a step real reading needs, which is checking “is this a word I know?” A child who reads unpracticed real words with the pattern, on two different days, is ready to stop.

How not to use nonsense words

Three things to avoid, whatever your child’s reading level:

• No lists to memorize. A memorized made-up word is just another sight word, and it stops showing whether your child can sound out. The advice of Timothy Shanahan in his 2016 post on teaching nonsense words is blunt: “please do not teach these nonsense words to the kids.”
• No long sessions. A round lasts one minute at most. Longer pushes a child to rush and guess, which is the habit made-up words are meant to expose.
• Never practice the school screener. The University of Oregon, which publishes DIBELS, says “you should never practice the DIBELS measures with your students,” to keep “teaching time” and “testing time” apart. Practicing the test moves the score, not the skill.

Nonsense words on school reading tests

Two tests parents are most likely to meet use made-up words.

DIBELS Nonsense Word Fluency is used in many US kindergarten and first grade classrooms. It asks a child to read short made-up words and reports two numbers: correct letter sounds and words read correctly. What the numbers mean, and the benchmark goals for each season, are in DIBELS explained for parents.

England’s Year 1 phonics screening check mixes 20 made-up words in with 20 real ones and shows each made-up word as the name of an imaginary creature.

A low score on either flags that sounding out needs work. It is not a diagnosis, and the help is practice with sounds and real words, not with the test.

Nonsense words and dyslexia

Reading made-up words is part of a dyslexia evaluation, because it measures decoding on its own. Signs of dyslexia in young children covers what an evaluation looks at and when to ask for one.