- Would you like to go back there if you could, if only for a moment?
- Unfortunately, fewer and fewer children are having the opportunity to have experiences like this, which is disturbing for many reasons.
- Along with many others who work in health, as a child psychiatrist I am deeply concerned about this.
Importance of playful learning
Learning to read does not come naturally. Reading requires developing new neural pathways.
This requires some direct instructions for the development of specific skills, and this can be done through playful learning that need not mean a loss of play. This will depend on:
the kindergarten team (comprised of a teacher and early childhood educator) fully understanding their roles and the new curricula priorities;
the team knowing how to support play-based learning in the classroom, and mapping out how they will combine some direct instruction with rich play- and inquiry-based activities;
the team being sufficiently equipped and resourced. Ideally, this would mean being supported by a literacy coach well-versed in evidence-based learning strategies for supporting children’s emerging literacy and for supporting play.
Read more:
To help children learn how to read in the pandemic, encourage writing messages as part of play
Play is not the opposite of learning
- Until fairly recently, many people considered play to be the opposite of work and learning, believing play is done when the real work of learning has been finished.
- But once people know that experiences accompanied by emotional connections are much more memorable, you can organize play in ways that increase the amount of learning.
- From a health perspective, the absence of play, especially outdoor play, leads to rising obesity rates.
The science of learning
There has been an explosion in the study of the science of learning which asks: how does the brain learn? Kathy Hirsh Pasek, a professor of psychology at Temple University, with her team, is leading scholars in this science of learning. According to their research, learning happens best when:
children are active with “minds on” rather than passively sitting for long periods of time with teacher talking or instructing;
they are engaged;
the information is meaningful;
they are socially interacting;
the learning is “iterative,” meaning information or concepts are repeated in varied contexts, and across subject areas, to help children see new ways to combine smaller parts;
they are having fun.
Crucial to success is this: teachers must see that a shift towards playful learning is essential for achieving both engagement and academic success. Principals need to be on board and supportive of this approach.
Teacher-guided play
- Teachers need to understand the different types of play as described and researched by child development professor Angela Pyle.
- As her work outlines, play is considered to be on a continuum from free play to guided play to formal games.
Protecting the loss of childhood
- British education advocate Sir Ken Robinson famously said that felons in jail have more outdoor play time daily than children on average across the globe spend outside playing.
- Research from other countries has also documented how an increasing sense of business in children’s lives has also crowded out play.
- There is nothing more basic than the right to belong and the right to play.
Jean Clinton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
