PLAY: What It Is and How to Use It to Support Development and Learning

1. PLAY:What It Is and How to Use It to Support Development and Learning Karin Lifter, PhD Northeastern University Head Start Broadcast Call April 6, 2011 K.Lifter@neu.edu

2. Funded by: Institute of Education Sciences (IES) National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) U.S. Department of Education Awarded to: Karin Lifter (Northeastern) Emanuel Mason (Northeastern) Takuya Minami (U. Wisconsin) Project Play

3. Objectives for Broadcast • Present concerns about time for play • Discuss why play is important • Contributes to language, literacy, self-regulation • --> School Readiness • Describe: • What play is • What children learn in play • How play contributes to language development • Review what you can do to help children play

4. Learning Outcomes • Increased knowledge of: • Play • The contribution of play to language, literacy, and social/emotional development for young children • --> importance of play to school readiness! • Increased skills for: • identifying play activities that support developments in play, language, and literacy development

5. Current ConcernsAPA Monitor: September 2009

6. APA MonitorLea Winerman • Identifies • Contemporary concerns: • decreases in recess and free time • Result of societal fears of “falling behind” • Cites David Elkind and Kathy Hirsch-Pasek • Play as important for creativity, critical thinking, and ability to learn from failure • Cites report from Alliance for Childhood

7. Alliance for Childhood • Report: March 2009 • “Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why children need to play in school” • Based on research in NY and LA • 2-3 hours per day of: • literacy; math instruction; testing • Less than 30 minutes per day • for play or choice time --> To reduce fears, let’s think about the importance of play

8. Importance of PlayZero to Three (2004) Zigler, Singer, & Bishop-Josef (Eds.)

9. Importance of Play Use of Sociodramatic Play to Develop Literacy Skills in EC SettingsBanerjee & Horn (2005)

10. Importance of PlayNY Times Magazine: Sept. 27, 2009

11. NY Times Magazine: Sept. 27, 2009Paul Tough The Make-Believe Solution: Can imaginary play teach children to control their impulses -- and be better students? Using “Tools of the Mind” curriculum to encourage executive function

12. Importance of Play(Recent Research) • Sharyn Matthews (2008): • Sociodramatic play (especially the component of verbal communication) predicted self-regulation in preschoolers • Teachers accord great importance to self-regulation as a readiness skill

13. NAEYC 2009: Position Statement on Developmentally Appropriate Practice …Play promotes key abilities that enable children to learn successfully. In high-level dramatic play … the collaborative planning of roles and scenarios and the impulse control required to stay within the play’s constraints develop children’s self-regulation, symbolic thinking, memory, and language -- capacities critical to later learning, social competence, and school success.

14. Play is Important! Contributes to School Readiness: • Roots of reading • Language development • Self-regulation

15. Overview of Literacy Development Traditional pre-literacy activities • Word play, phonological awareness • Book reading, letter identification • Dramatic play: • development of symbol system Contemporary ideas: • foundation for literacy in early play (Zigler et al., 2004). • Play contributes to social, emotional, cognitive, literacy development

16. Foundations of Literacy • Children need to learn the language • Definition of language: • “Language is a means for representing information in messages … • Language is a social act and is used to obtain, maintain, and regulate contact with other persons … language is learned in such contexts” (Lahey, 1988, p.352).

17. Some Components of Literacy • Language is a means for expressing information • Reading is a means for decoding and interpreting information • Writing is a means for encoding and expressing information

18. Foundations of Language • Language is about something(just like reading and writing are about something) • Language is used to express knowledge and feelings about objects, people, and events • In addition to learning the forms and uses of language … • --> Children need to develop knowledge about objects, people, and events that are represented in messages

19. How Do Children Learn? • How do children develop knowledge about: • objects, people, and events that are represented in messages? • Children need to develop knowledge so that they have: • something to talk about • something to interact about • --> Children develop knowledge in and through play

20. Different Ways to Think about Play We often think of play as a natural activity • NAEYC: use of play to embed opportunities for learning • DEC Recommended Practices • (Wolery 2005) Child focused interventions in natural activities

21. Developmental Domains Play (child’s work) Language Self-help Cognitive Social/Emotional Motor Play as an Activity

22. How Play Defined Here Focus on play as something to be developed: --> Play as a developmental domain • Play as an activity to develop and express knowledge about objects, people, and events • This perspective lets us talk about play separate from other domains • We will focus on this perspective to begin with

23. Why Play as a Developmental Domain is Important in Development • Can think about play as a form of expression • Children will show you what they know and are thinking about in their play • --> we need to play attention to what children are doing in their play to get an idea of what they know

24. Why Play as a Developmental Domain is Important in Development • Also can think about play as a way to interpret new information • Children will use play activities to learn new things about objects and events • --> We need to pay attention to learning opportunities that present themselves in children’s play

25. Where Do These Ideas Come From?Traditional Theories of Play Piaget (1962, p. 93) • Happy display of known actions Montessori (1967, p. 180) • The child’s work Vygotsky (in Rubin et al., 1983, p. 709) • An adaptive mechanism promoting cognitive growth Lifter & Bloom (1998, p. 164) • “Actions in play display what the child already knows (i.e. expression)… but also display what the child is currently thinking about in efforts to make sense (i.e. interpretation) of ongoing events for advancing knowledge.”

26. Implications for Development • Children construct knowledge of objects, people, and events through their play • Children learn language to represent and share their increasing knowledge • This increasing knowledge is expressed in play and in language, resulting in: • correspondences between play and language (Bloom & Tinker, 2001; Lifter & Bloom, 1989; McCune, 1995)

27. Implications for Intervention • Can use play to assess the expression of knowledge in young children with language delays • --> Assessment of play (Lifter, 2000) • Can use play to support developments in knowledge for young children with developmental delays • --> Interventions in play --> more knowledge, and more knowledge to express in language and play; engagement in social interactions (Lifter et al. 2005)

28. Focus on Play as Something to be Developed: -> See Delays in Play in Many Children with Special Needs • Children with autism/PDD • Delays in developing pretend/symbolic play (McDonough et al., 1997) • Less frequent spontaneous play (Libby et al., 1998) • High frequency of repetitive play • Limited imitation skills • Limited cooperative play and turn-taking • Children with Down syndrome • Less exploratory behavior in solitary play than typically developing children • Tendency to elaborate on the same play themes repeatedly • Significant correlation between symbolic play and mental age (Cunningham et al., 1985)

29. Focus on Play as Something to be Developed: -> See Delays in Play in Many Children with Special Needs • Children of mothers who have abused substances (Beckwith et al., 1994) • Continued persistence of immature play strategies • Delayed development of more complex play • Children with visual impairments(Troster & Brambring, 1994) • Limited exploration • More solitary play • Less symbolic play

30. Some Problems with Descriptions • Use of general descriptions • Symbolic play • Complex play • Mix social behaviors with an emphasis on what is happening in play • Solitary play • Cooperative play • Many descriptions are inconsistent • Need for descriptions that focus on play as a domain

31. Examples of Descriptions of Play (Foundations): Use of Categories, Developmental Sequences

32. Descriptions of Play (from the Developmental Play Assessment:DPA) Lifter (2000)

33. Descriptions of Play as a Domain • Can focus on play • Can describe play and its relationship to other domains • For example, language

34. Play Explore, take hold of objects, move from place to place Treat all objects alike Mouthing, banging Take toys apart -> Developing knowledge of objects in relation to the self Language Reciprocal gaze Joint attention Calling attention to objects and events Taking turns Correspondences:Prelinguistic Period

35. Take Apart Combinations of Toys:To Take Hold of Them, To Mouth Them

36. Play Create relationships between objects Perceptually based Puzzle piece into frame, nesting cup into another General properties Objects in/out containers -> Developing knowledge of objects in relationship to other objects & people (underlies object perm., cause-effect) Language First words (emergence of first conventional words) Mean: 13.8 mos Range = 10-18 mos Code meanings evident in context (relations between objects, object permanence, location) /this/, /gone/, /more/, /up/ Transition to First Words

37. Put Toys Together Based on Perceptual Properties (“go together”)

38. Move Various Objects In and Out of Containers

39. Begin to Create New Combinations Based on Physical Properties

40. Play Create specific relationships based on physical & conventional properties of objects Stacks nesting cups Feeds doll w/ spoon Uses tool to fix car See-then-act quality -> Developing mental representations of properties/relationships Language (sharp increase in the number of new words used) Mean = 19.4 mos Range = 13-25 mos Code meanings anticipated in context /baby/, as prepares to feed doll with spoon Transition to the Vocabulary Spurt

41. Continue to Create New Combinations Based on Physical Properties:

42. Create New Combinations Based on What Has Been Observed and Remembered:Feed Doll with Spoon

43. Create New Combinations Based on What Has Been Observed and Remembered:Use Tools to Fix Car

44. Play Link activities into planned events that represent cultural practices Develops from “see-then-act” to planned Multischeme sequences (Sees baby, cup, blanket --> picks up doll, cradles it, gives it a drink, then lays it on blanket to sleep) Begin to substitute one object for another Language Elaboration of form of utterances From single words and successive single words to simple sentences Announcements of actions /baby wants a drink/, then enacts the scheme /this my baby/ /night night baby/ Play During Early Sentences

45. Multi-Scheme Sequence: Pt.1

46. Multi-Scheme Sequence: Pt.2

47. Substitutions

48. Sociodramatic play Children take on roles they have observed in their everyday experiences “Bakers” making pies Social components are added in play with peers Play During Preschool Years

49. More sociodramatic play Children take on roles they have observed in their everyday experiences Playing “house” Social components are added in play with peers Play During Preschool Years

50. Implications for Young Children with Special Needs • Assessment in play • Observe and quantify play activities • Use a developmental sequence to determine which activities the child knows well and which activities are just beginning to emerge in the child’s play • Interventions in play: provide contexts for • Increasing child’s knowledge about objects, people, events • Hearing language to describe what the child is learning and attending to • Engaging in caregiver-child joint attention