I believe that phonological awareness is important to determine reading readiness of children, however, I do not think that a child's ability to read nonsense words determines if they are behind or not. In undergrad, we learned a lot about how to introduce phonological awareness and assess student's reading readiness. I still believe that all of that is important. It is especially important for beginning readers. We can't expect children to be proficient readers right away. They have to know the basics. While I don't think a student's ability to read nonsense words predicts their reading proficiency, I believe it is completely necessary for students to learn the basics of phonemic awareness.
At my school, we use a direct instruction reading program. In the beginning of the program we focus primarily on letter sounds and how to blend them together. It is not until the students are familiar with how to blend together sounds to make words do they begin to read words the fast way, or as a whole word. When they are comfortable reading words as a whole, the move to sentences, and on to larger passages. Because they have learned how to sound words out using individual sounds, they are always able to read nonsense words without any issue as well as read passages proficiently.
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