Struggle

by Russ Fugal

 

I recently asked my little brother, who has struggled with reading, to read this word:

• remeliptivate

 

Remeliptivate is a word that may be used in a study of struggling readers. It is pronounceable, and follows normal spelling rules. It is structured like a normal word, with common letter groupings — like re- and -tivate — but remeliptivate is a nonsense word.

 

Nonsense words are designed to test if a child really can read — because nonsense word fluency is “prerequisite to word identification” — or if he/she is just “faking it” with a command of “sight words”.

 

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