Things to try at Home

• Check whether your child understands the meaning in different types of texts or languages. If they tell you that something “is” so, ask them how they know, or what makes them think that. This can help them think about other possibilities, which is what the teachers do at school as well.
  

• When you flick though the junk mail or watch television together, talk about the language the advertisers have used to make you want to buy their products. Encourage your child to think about how the language makes the advertising claims believable, and what information they leave out and what that also tells us.
  

• Comment when you see a symbol used in a new way, or the same symbol used to mean different things in different contexts. Talk about who might have “invented” each use, and why. For example, the @ sign so widely used now for e-mail addresses used to mean “and the cost is” – “three packages @ $2 = $6 total”.