Nonsense words Revisited

A few days ago I posted about some nonsense word cards that I made up. I wanted to talk about them again because I have really seen the value of them recently.

I meet with 15 first graders 4 days a week during our RTI time or MTSS time. We have found out recently that our students are lacking the skill to work with nonsense words. So each day I split this group in half and work with these cards. They each get about 9 or 10 cards. I ask them to mix and match the words to make as many different words as they can. Then they take all their cards and slide them to the right and start all over again with 9 or 10 new cards and many new nonsense words. I know this sound simple. . . but it really has been fun for them and helps them zoom in on those beginning sounds and be more sure of themselves with the vowel sounds.

Our testing now asks the students to be able to say the whole nonsense word instead of segmenting it first then saying it. . . A weird thing to me, because isn't that the way we began teaching them in Kindergarten? And now they want to take the segmenting away! 

I know, I know, I get it. . . they want them to be fluent. . . . and with these cards, they ARE making good progress. Seriously!

So today to help with that fluency, I asked them to use their left hand and wave it in the air over the word like a SWOOSH to show the blending of the word parts. . . . ya. . . ya. . . I know. . . it's corny. . . 

BUT it worked!  SWOOSH! nid. . . . SWOOSH! dep . . . . .SWOOSH! bul and on and on!

So if you're needing some extra practice with these nonsense words come and see me! I'm happy to show you how to get them. Just click right here and you'll magically be at my store. They're only $2.00 and there are about 66 cards to mix and match to make up words. 

P.S. I also had a couple kids play around with making two syllable words like  t-as-ip    or 
w-in-id. It was rather comical!

And don't forget. . . 

TOMORROW IS FRIDAY ALL DAY LONG! 


Patty