Changes occur at a slower rate and in less obvious ways during this period, but they are just as important for future success in communication. Given the close relationship between language and cognition (i.e., understanding and using words in meaningful and appropriate ways) successful communication is crucial for scholastic success and social acceptance.

During this time, the child will:

• perfect his sound system;
• continue to develop his vocabulary and will learn that words can function in more than one grammatical category (e.g., colour (noun), to colour (verb));
• use words with shared meaning rather than idiosyncratic meaning;
• form single word definitions based on sentences providing appropriate details and explanation.

His understanding of English syntax will continue to develop with:

• the refinement of passive forms, e.g., understanding which ones are reversible and which are not (e.g., Mike was chased by Kathryn/ Kathryn was chased by Mike, but The chocolate was eaten by Martin/*Martin was eaten by the chocolate). However, the acquisition of passive forms is not complete until the end of primary school; [NB: an asterisk indicates an ungrammatical or unacceptable sentence]
• Understanding who does what to whom with action verbs in close proximity to their subjects and objects, e.g., The dog bit me. This same understanding with distal objects/actions will not occur until upper primary school, e.g., Rhonda promised to cook Martin some dinner.
• Using a wider range of conjunctions to express more intricate relationships between phrases (e.g,. if, so, because, therefore, but, or, before, after, when, then), but may still have trouble with the ordering of causal meanings, such as because, and those related to disbelief or uncertainty, such as using unless.

By the end of primary school the child will distinguish between subject pronouns (I, we, he, she, they), object pronouns (me, us, him, her, them) and reflexive pronouns (myself, himself, themselves) and will be creating longer and more elaborate sentences, using embedding, adjectives in the correct order (big, blue eyes), appropriate quantifiers (few, little, much), and adverbs such as definitely, possibly, probably.

He will have learnt to use the definite and indefinite article for text reference, e.g., Can you see the dog? It's a Kelpie cross. His narratives will have more clearly defined 'plots' and begin to exclude superfluous information (but again there is huge individual variation!).

As a child proceeds through school he moves from understanding and producing the purely literal speech to figurative language including metaphors, similes, idioms, proverbs, adages, and maxims. This development plays an important role in humour and in middle primary we see children exploring jokes based on phonologically similar words:

As children become more aware of the multiple meanings of words, this also appears in their humour:

The child will have become a more sophisticated conversationalist and will have developed the ability to:

• Introduce new topics;
• Maintain relevance while moving from one topic to a related one;
• Repair conversational breakdown and negotiate meaning with others;
• Show sensitivity to listeners' communication needs, organise and sequence information;
• Use and respond to the more subtle forms of indirect requests, i.e., hinting (e.g, a junior primary child will respond to the comment It's cold in here with agreement, while an older child will understand to shut the door they have left open).

Note, however, that these aspects show considerable individual variation. For example, gender differences in language use become more apparent with increasing age. By upper primary the child will have developed metalinguistic awareness and skills to deal with language as an object to analyze.