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written by Bonnie Schultz
Play in schools has become a hot button topic. During the last few decades, the trend in early childhood education has undergone a major shift away from playtime and towards academics. As early as 1974 an article described affluent parents who "were demanding that their five-year-olds be taught to read,” and in 1981, an article called kindergarten a "very serious learning period.”
While children have always played, and historically with a lot more freedom than today, society has generally not recognized the importance of play until the recent past. Expressions like “it’s child’s play,” meaning that something is absurdly easy, or in British English, one is “playing ducks and drakes,” conveying the sentiment that someone is squandering wealth or opportunity, are just a couple of examples of how adults disregard the importance of children’s play.
Play vs. Academics
A research study by Rebecca Marcon showed that children who went to an academic preschool were initially ahead of their peers from a play-based preschool but that these advantages reversed in fourth grade, with the children from the play-based preschool outperforming the academic preschool children, receiving considerably higher grades. Other research studies, such as that of David Weikart and his colleagues, revealed that children from a “direct instruction” preschool versus a play-based preschool displayed no major academic gains years later but were at a greater social and emotional disadvantage, having perpetrated more than twice as many “acts of misconduct” as children from the play-based preschools.
The advantages of play-based preschool and kindergarten are many: children learn through cooperation and sharing and by conducting their own investigations and discoveries. When kindergarten is too directed and scripted by the teacher, children are deprived of the opportunity to explore and learn by playing and doing. They lose curiosity and eventually turn into poor learners, as teachers have reported, who are the type of students who expect someone to magically make them learn. Teachers who are frustrated with the pressure on them to teach academic skills to little children and test them consider this type of learning rote learning which, if done in excess, can stifle rather than nurture children’s natural curiosity.
However, according to Katherine Hodges, Policy Research Project Coordinator at the Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers Graduate School of Education, “A preschool or kindergarten program doesn’t need to commit to be purely academic or play-based. Play can be the foundation and highly qualified teachers can serve as guides to help children learn.”
Play According to the Developmental Theorists
Play not only impacts children’s development, it is a right as guaranteed in Article 31 of the United Nation’s Rights of the Child. Early childhood theorists such as Froebel, Montessori and Steiner focused on the “whole child” and attempted to free children from the rote learning that comprised education in the latter part of the nineteenth century. According to these theorists, free and imaginative play was constructive in a child’s building identity, while art, language, music and dance all nourished the child’s inner life as well as provided a means to build understanding. The term “kindergarten,” invented by Froebel, came about because he believed each child should have their own “garden plot” to tend, to nurture their sense of community and responsibility.
Of course, one cannot mention childhood theorists without including Jean Piaget. Piaget coined the famous phrase “Play is the work of childhood.” Some examples of play according to Piaget’s developmental phases include:
Sensorimotor phase (birth to 2 years): Babies or toddlers can play games such as peek-a-boo with a caregiver knowing that the caregiver is still there and understand surroundings will still exist if they cover their eyes or that a toy still exists if hidden under a blanket.
Pre-operational phase (2 to 7 years): In this phase, a child might start out in parallel play, with children playing side-by-side but then start playing with other children in their games and pretend play. A child begins to engage in symbolic play, whereby they pretend to be someone they’re not (a superhero, doctor) and enjoy playing with toys that resemble real life objects (toy kitchen, lawnmower, doll’s house). In this stage Katherine Green, who serves on the affiliate faculty at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, says that preschool or kindergarten classrooms should be set up to allow children to engage with toys and materials independently, with make-believe shops or restaurants letting them interact with written materials such as pretend menus even if they cannot yet read, building a foundation for understanding language
Concrete operational phase (7 to 11 years): In this phase, children experience conservation, such as knowing that a ball of playdoh is the same amount whether it’s round or squashed. A child can conduct sorting activities such as grouping blocks of the same color or organizing them from tallest to shortest or thickest to thinnest. They might enjoy baking with a parent and observing differing amounts with measuring cups or spoons.
Formal operational phase (12+ years): Children can problem solve and “play” at a more sophisticated level: enjoying logical games and puzzles, figuring how to resource materials to build a model solar system, for example, and having the patience and deductive skills for games such as chess or activities such as science bowl, math competition, and debate team.
Echoing Piaget, educator and parenting expert Karen Aronian says “play is the work children do when they are developing. It’s the bedrock of understanding. In play, children are practicing the roles and skill sets of their burgeoning literacy, inventiveness and interconnectedness.”
Your Child’s Playtime According to Piaget
Some general tips on how parents and caregivers can help their child play using Piaget’s developmental theory are as follows:
As they grow, encourage your child to use their senses (sight, taste, smell, see, touch) to explore objects and sensations.
Let them explore their physical surroundings themselves, within safe limits.
Set up playdates where they can interact with other children who are at a similar stage of development or slightly higher.
When they are ready, introduce word and logic games or puzzles to stimulate their cognitive development.
Playtime with TeachMe TV®
At TeachMe TV®, we are committed to cultivating life-long learners. In a constantly changing world, acquiring the skills to become a problem-solver who knows how to learn is more important than ever. Our learning programs offer play-based and interactive activities that are designed to cultivate children’s thinking abilities and are as fun as they are educational. Influenced by Montessori teaching methods, we believe that learning should be discovery-based and self-directed through play during the early years. At this stage, the most powerful learning is experiential learning.
TeachMe TV’s learning environment is also in accordance with Lev Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, a construct defined as the space between what a learner can do without assistance and with guidance from more experienced peers or a teacher. As children progress through the activities, they can build upon what they learn and apply it to new situations, with problem-solving models and guidance from virtual tutors when needed.
Our interactive activities consist of the following areas:
Games and activities: Children can select from activities such as Be a Shape Detective, where they can learn about polygons and angles, The Math House, which teaches them about measurements and lets them print a recipe to make with their parents, and The Water Cycle, where they learn how water moves between lakes, rivers, oceans, the atmosphere and the land in a continuous cycle, and What Makes the Perfect Playground, which explores how playground equipment works from an engineering or physics standpoint (such as how a swing acts as a pendulum). Our games section includes math and word games sorted according to level of difficulty. Children can practice their multiplication or learn about arrays as well as play age-old games such as word ladders.
Videos: Children can watch educational videos that explore topics such as photosynthesis with Mosa Mack, or the origin of idioms such as “sleep tight,” “big wig,” and “put a sock in it.” Our brand new reading show, Book Club models good reading habits such as asking questions as you read, predicting future actions in the story, identifying themes, and the main idea. All our videos model good habits of mind such as observation, focus, exploration, perseverance, problem-solving, and knowledge acquisition. Children learn what they see and hear. Modeling is a powerful way to teach.
Music: According to Froebel, music and movement encourage a child to feel their own inner-life, and help make sense of their world while developing their gross and fine motor skills. Music is also a wonderful tool to introduce children to different cultures and perspectives. We have many songs for children that would fit into the Froebel model, covering everything from experiencing the seasons, learning to feel angry without acting out with anger, saying hello (in different languages), reading books, to even feeling and giving love.
All our activities offer feedback. If a child does not know what they are doing incorrectly, they can find it very difficult to make a correction. Kids feel empowered when they have tools and develop strategies to solve problems.
Academic Kindergarten Pushback
Advocates of play-based kindergarten will be happy to hear about classes like the Pathfinder Kindergarten Center> in the Mukilteo School District of Washington State as profiled in The Hechinger Report>. The school opened in 2017 with the goal of making kindergarten “more playful and joyful.” The program was formed on advice from Washington’s early childhood experts. Other school districts are starting to implement play-based kindergarten curriculum, and in the case of Watertown, New York, they are even including first grade.
A school district in West Chester, Pennsylvania noticed that occupational therapy referrals were down after adopting a play-based kindergarten, and a study of two school districts in Texas found that grades in reading and math improved after kindergarten and first grade children were allowed more play time through more frequent recess periods.
In short, play helps children grow into healthy, motivated and independent individuals. It is a key component in assisting them to build the skills they need to succeed in school and in life, and should continue to some extent through the later grades. First grade teachers have said that they can always pick out the kids from play-based kindergartens because they are often better prepared, are farther along academically, socially, and emotionally, and are kinder and more caring.
As we can see, when constructed with skill and care, the evidence demonstrates that play-based learning programs can be the most optimal educational environments for young children.
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