As children enter school, their speech and language skills continue to develop. Their vocabulary grows, their sentences become longer and more complex. They are able to give definitions for words.

Their conversational skills improve and they can carry on conversations with adults. They can introduce a topic, continue it for several turns, and then close or switch topics. They can adjust their language to meet their partners' needs; they will repeat or rephrase when not understood. They know how and when to use polite language forms.

Children improve their storytelling skills. Their stories have a definite beginning, middle and end.They tell the events in the proper order.

They discover that sentences are made up of words, words are made up of syllables and sounds. They can break sentences and words up into their components. They learn to read.

By age 7, children understand and use the basic concepts of time, space and causality. They understand the meaning of many suffixes.

Between 7 and 11 years, children use language for humour - many riddles and jokes are based on multiple word meanings. They understand idioms and figurative language: "your nose is running", "it's raining cats and dogs". Their perspective-taking skill improves. Reading comprehension increases as the decoding part becomes easier.