Westwood's Word Wizard

The teaching of vocabulary

At Westwood we want to equip the children with rich and varied vocabulary that they can use to enhance their writing. Westwood’s Word Wizard provides the children with 3/4 words per week for KS1 and 5 words per genre for KS2 for them to learn and use within their writing. The wizard reveals the words at the beginning of the week, followed by direct teaching about the word meanings and how to use them correctly in different contexts. A game or activity will take place to help embed the new vocabulary. The children will then be encouraged to use these in their work. Within their writing, the words will be highlighted in blue. If they include all of the given words, they will receive an individual reward (based on the class reward systems).

What the children think...

"The wizard teaches me new words!"

"I like trying to use the new words in my writing!"

"I try to use all of them in my work!"

"I think they make my writing better!"

In every classroom there is a Word Wizard display that shows the words for that week. When that piece of writing has been completed, the words are moved to be displayed with past wizard words so children always have access to words previously taught with the aim of them continuing to use them.