Benefits of Teaching Kids Nonsense Words

Video Transcript

"About this time we can also start teaching nonsense words. Nonsense words are words that are not real, we don't use them, but they illustrate the same rule that we're working on. So right now we're working on the simple short vowel sounds and learning consonant sounds so a nonsense word in this category would be like fid, fid, and remember to tell your child these are not real words and if you, sometimes I mix nonsense words in with real words and I say that's not a real word. What this does is, it teaches the child the pure act of sounding out without trying to guess what the word is. After a while, children will look at p i and just try to guess that you're writing pin or you're writing pig and they won't even look at the last letter and they'll get it wrong. To keep your child from trying to jump ahead, we have these nonsense words so we fill it up with fid, and din or any word you can think of that is not a real word, fill it up with those words and have them practice these words also as they're practicing the real words. This will work for any new rule as we go into larger words with blends and silent e's and different vowel combinations. You can still use that rule and throw in a word that's not a real word to teach them to sound out purely."