When you are traveling with your child, in the car or in the MRT or in the bus, talk with them. One of the most fruitful and fun things you can do is have your child tell you about their friends or their school or any story, really, and then somewhere along the line, deliberately misunderstand them. Pretend that you mishear them. Say you talk about “chicken rice,” ask why they were growing rice for chickens. Or if they had chicken rice for lunch, poor chickens, stop taking the rice away from the chickens.

This does several things: it makes the child pay more attention to what the child is saying. This can lead, if you guide the child in this direction, to the child restating what they said in different words, often increasing in precision. This re-stating will stand your child in very good stead in the General Paper at A levels (which requires paraphrasing), because they would have learnt to use a wider vocabulary as well as being able to state grammatically, precisely the same thought in different ways.

Note: Humour is also extremely important in this activity!