School setting brings new opportunities for language development. Children have developed more sophisticated metalinguistic awareness. They acquire complex knowledge and skills for language use. They can understand that a word is separate from the thing it represents and understand that caterpillar is a longer word than ‘train’, even though the object it represents is shorter. Knowing that words and sentences can have multiple meanings that give access to word jokes and riddles. In the early school years, they have growth of vocabulary. Children understand and produce several hundreds to a thousand words a year that depends on how much and how widely children read.
Another important development in the school years is the acquisition of different language registers that a style or way of using language that is appropriate for a particular setting as follows: the children used in writing a research report is different from that used in writing a letter to a friend. They learn how written language is different from spoken language, they learn how the language used to speak to the principal is different form the language of the playground, and they learn how the language of a science report is different form the language of a narrative
and speaking the standard variety in school instead of the ethnic or regional variety that is spoken at home.