The article draws attention to the connection between the processes of understanding the language norm and the socio-cultural development of community, and to the responsibility of modern schools for mastering the norms of the literary language. The conditions and approaches to teaching norms at school are described as an indicator of the quality of speech of an educated person. Special attention is drawn to value orientations of students in the assimilation of the norms of the language. In this regard, it is not only the quantitative results of the assimilation of norms, but also about their quality. Literacy (written and oral) is considered as a broad concept and includes the idea of the norm of the modern Russian language, determines the quality of communication of a native speaker in a new sociocultural environment. This position is based on the understanding of the rules and is justified by the need to maintain a balance in the development of language processes. The article deals with the main issues that require attention in followin linguistic and social norms. The school environment is considered as part of the social environment which produces right attitude to literary language, and mechanisms of improvement in it. Selfcorrection skills are acquired through working with samples of speech culture, preventing typical cases of violation of the norm. For school practice, the process of working on violations of the language norm that lead to incorrect speech is important. The normative competence of a native speaker is provided by a number of factors, one of which is the expansion of communicative abilities of students in a variety of styles, forms and genres in education. This method in the field of linguistic norms is shown in the article. For example, the justification of the non-randomness of language form and traditions of its existence. One of the most significant ways of representing norms is cognitive, which aims at understanding the tradition of mental characteristics in its content and to understanding the norm as a factor of stability of the language which continues its development in the new realities on the basis of laws. The article describes techniques of the rich methodological arsenal that teach the use of standard linguistic phenomena, such as simulating dialogues, expressive reading, etc. Providing normative content in the study of the Russian language is an important cultural and value task.