When evaluating a student's skills with nonsense words, what specific skill are you assessing?

When a student's skills with nonsense words are evaluated, the specific skill being assessed is word attack skills. This involves the ability to decode unfamiliar words using phonetic principles rather than relying on prior knowledge of language or vocabulary. Nonsense words are intentionally chosen because they do not carry any meaning, which allows for a pure assessment of a student's ability to apply their understanding of phonetics, phonemic awareness, and spelling patterns without the influence of memorized words or context clues.

This skill is crucial for developing reading proficiency, as it demonstrates how well a student can use knowledge of sounds and spelling to decode new or unfamiliar words. In contrast to word attack skills, phonological awareness involves recognizing and manipulating sounds in spoken language rather than written text, fluency focuses on the speed and accuracy of reading rather than decoding skills, and reading comprehension pertains to understanding and interpreting text, which is not directly measured through nonsense word assessment. Thus, evaluating nonsense words provides valuable insights into a student's decoding abilities, making word attack skills the correct interpretation in this context.