Oral Language in Elementary School

In elementary school, children learn new words readily. They study new subjects, and each subject has its own particular vocabulary. Furthermore, teachers model the use of oral language in the classroom, and children are encouraged to participate in classroom discussions. The greater the child's exposure to oral language in the home, the more successful he will be in expressing himself in the school setting.

School-age children love to play with language. They are often very fond of puns and jokes. In particular, kindergarteners seem to love knock-knock jokes. Parents can find joke books at the public library and on the Internet. As children move up in the elementary grades, they are able to understand figures of speech such as sarcasm (although using sarcasm with children is almost never appropriate), metaphors, and similes. When reading aloud to children, parents can point out uses of figurative language and ask children what the author might have intended.

Children benefit when adults use a rich vocabulary and narrate their thinking processes around their children (“It’s such a spectacular day today, I think we should go to the park.”). Children may ask what unknown words mean or they may be able to intuit their meaning from context. In either case, they are often able to incorporate these words into their own spoken vocabulary after only one hearing. In addition, children begin to be able to talk about their own thinking (“I wanted to go outside and play, but when I saw that it was raining, I decided to play indoors”). The ability to think about one's own thinking (known as "metacognition") is predictive of reading comprehension in the upper elementary grades.

By elementary school, children can use words effectively to a much greater degree than they did in preschool. Words can be relied on by the child to negotiate his world. Once he can easily name his emotions, he will be better able to get along with others and to get his needs met, and this allows him to become increasingly independent. In addition, elementary-age children begin to filter their language and do not say everything that comes into their heads. This is helpful in developing and maintaining relationships with others. Also, children of this age may begin to lie. In particular, they may tell “little white lies” to avoid hurting other people’s feelings.

In addition to lying, some children may begin to use swear words during this period. These children don’t necessarily know what the words mean, but they enjoy the shock value that such words often have. If parents use swear words around their children, their children will use them at home and at school. Parents are wise to curtail their use in the home and to discuss the nature of the words and their lack of appropriateness. If the child is exposed to swear words in movies, for example, a calm and matter-of-fact discussion can go a long way toward minimizing the child’s use of these words.