Persuade me!

10 - 11 years

Ideas to help your child practise their literacy skills - with you, and online

Developed in partnership with Education Services Australia

The Australian Curriculum sets the goal for what all students should learn as they progress through their school life. Skills in the Year 5-6 curriculum include:

fine-tuning word choices to express messages in everyday situations
using shades of meaning to communicate an intended message.

It’s easy to help your child practise these skills as part of everyday life – just use these simple ideas.

Analyse advertising

At school your child will look at advertisements from two angles – how to decode them (and be a savvy consumer), and how to learn from their persuasive techniques. To help your child, notice ads in catalogues, magazines, billboards, TV and the internet, and discuss questions such as:

who is the ad targeting?
how does it appeal to that audience?
what is the call to action (what does the ad want you to do)?
is there a slogan?
what persuasive words are used?
what colours and images are used, and why?
how about logos?
is the ad serious or funny? why?
does the ad have any ‘fine print’ or ‘terms and conditions’?
what do these mean?

As a bit of fun, your child could rate different ads for child appeal, eg from zero to five stars.

Encourage persuasion

For more practice (and fun!), find an opportunity when your child wants to persuade you about something important to them, and challenge them to do it with advertising. For example, they could make an ad promoting the benefits of buying a particular birthday gift, or giving them more time to watch television, or even letting them off cleaning their room.

Let your child choose the media (eg print, TV or radio), and encourage them to think about: