Does anyone else use these. We have a display in year 1 of words like exquisite,splendid,nervously I could go on and on, about 30 words at the moment which children include in their writing but what worries me is the cannot read the words so don't really know what they have written. Anyone reading their books would think what fantastic literacy skills they have when really they are just copying words off the wall. What do you think.

I completely agree with you, dd!

I am completely gobsmacked by this expectation for Y1 children to use such words. I bet they are not even in their spoken vocabulary yet.

I can't think of anything to say, other than I think the teacher who is doing this is a complete nutter and is lining these children up for future failure!

I agree with Maizie, I have worked in a school that uses wow words in all year groups but the words shown are those suggested buy the children themselves. Which is how it is supposed to work!

We use WOW words across all year groups in school, but I agree with Maizie, those words are ridiculously too advanced for Year 1!! There is no benefit to pupils in just copying a word from display they have no comprehension or familiarity with!

If our children produce a good piece of writing using imaginative or descriptive words, we put those up as WOW words. It just encourages them to vary the words they use in writing and to continue using more adventurous words.

Strawbz xxxx

We use wow words but they are what the children come up with and are put on the working wall!

The year 1's I work with would never use words like that in their spoken vocab! In my previous school the WOW words were suggested by the children in the class I worked with.

The way we use 'wow' words which are basically adjectives is when we are doing our termly big write week.

Each class worked for a week on a particular topic for literacy for that week. For instance our last one in November Y1 worked on a poster for the big bad wolf. linked to their fairy tale topic] Y2 made magical instructions for a potion [for their instructional text]

The week before we have big launch throughout the school so each child takes home a class letter explaining the topic and parents, or other family members are asked to help their child come up with a 'wow' word to be displayed on the wall throughout the week. The children have to know what it means and explain to the other children .[and the words will be in relation to describing the big bad wolf.ect...

One the Friday The whole school is engaged in Big write [they've had the support and scaffolding during the week] They are encouraged to use one or two words from the wall, then the following week there is a tot up of how many words were used by the children.
The word that was used the most in children's writing [such as fierce] gets a certificate for the family member that provided it.

It works well, even in Y1 But the words have to make sense to the children and be in context with what they are doing.