Last week’s post examined the nature of play, how play contributes to human development, and why play should be considered an active part of 21st century learning programs. This week’s post will examine types of play and the contributions they make to learner development.

First, I think it’s wise to take a moment to dispel the notion that play is extra or, to borrow from a meal analogy, that play is the “dessert” of a balanced academic program (i.e. something you only get to if you’ve consumed everything else). Instead, play should be considered an essential component of learning programs for three key reasons:

Play fosters learning. Research has found this to be true across academic disciplines for students from both low- and higher income environments (See Fisher et al, 2010 for literature review). Research shows this holds for English language learners as well (Fadool, 2009; Banerjee, R., Alsalman, A., & Alqafari, S., 2016)
Play contributes to proper brain development. Literature from the field of neuroscience helps us better understand how and why play stimulates brain plasticity and function (Liu et al, 2017).
It is through play that children develop a disposition to learn. (Bergen, 2009; Vygotsky, 1967; 1978; White, 2012)

If it’s not clear by now, let me say it again: Play does not get in the way of learning. Play is a powerful conduit for learning.

What makes play powerful is its ability to activate multiple modes of learning at once: social, emotional, cognitive, and physical. When children play, they interact with the world in a manner that is joyful, meaningful, actively engaging, socially interactive and iterative (Zosh et al, 2017). Play challenges children to try on new skills and dispositions and does so at a level that aligns with each child’s zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978). When children play they learn to regulate their behavior, develop logical-mathematical thinking skills, figure out how to negotiate dynamic social interactions, build a repertoire of creative problem-solving skills and more (White, 2012). The benefits of play are both longitudinal and interdisciplinary.

With that in place, let’s examine different types of play. There are two established categories: free play and guided play. Both have variations that are worth exploration by parents and educators alike.

Free Play

Free play is play pursued by children (of all ages!) that is entirely of their own design. There are four categories recognized by scholarship: Imaginative, Constructive, Games with Rules, and Rough-and-Tumble Play. Each contributes to learner development in unique and purposeful ways.

Imaginative Play

Description: Imaginative (pretend) play involves children taking on new roles, acting out the part of the roles, and playing by “the rules” they associate with such roles. For example, children might be store clerks scanning a shopper’s groceries or firefighters rushing to a burning building. During imaginative play children try on new identities and social conditions, enacting the skills, discourse, and behaviors that accompany their make-believe identity.

Contributions to learner development: Imaginative play contributes to learner development in important ways. First, it supports the development of oral language proficiency as children practice language they associate with the role they are playing. Next, imaginative play builds out executive function skills (self-control of thought, action, and emotion) as children role-play patience, taking turns, and sharing. Finally, imaginative play builds skills of social interaction as children try on new identities and internalize new perspectives.

Constructive Play

Description: Constructive play is also known as play with objects and begins as early as infancy when babies grasp toys and actively explore how each toy feels and behaves. Later constructive play evolves to include activities such as block play, building forts, and creating sculptures with clay or play-doh. Constructive play is goal-oriented in that children have a sense of what they want to create and then work to assemble that vision.

Contributions to learner development: Constructive play fosters the development of thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving skills. Children set goals, monitor progress, and problem-solve their way through obstacles they encounter. Constructive play is also home to “private speech,” a kind of dialogue children have with themselves regarding the task they’re engaged with (Mraz, Pocelli, & Tyler, 2016). What will happen if I put this block here? Can I get the tower to be taller? In this way, constructive play contributes to the development of flexible thinking, confidence, resiliency, and growth mindsets.

Games with Rules

Description: Games with rules represents a type of free play that enables children to instill a sense of order to their experience of the world. In the beginning, children make up games and negotiate their own rules. Later, they learn to play organized games like kick ball, hide and seek, or ghost in the graveyard.

Contributions to learner development Games with rules contribute to learner development in important ways. First, children practice skills of self-regulation as they take turns, follow established rules, and share the physical objects of a game (i.e. ball, dice, game pieces, etc.). Next, children learn skills of strategic planning as they figure out how to better their game play. Finally, games with rules help children learn skills of cooperation, healthy competition, good sportsmanship, and empathy.

Rough-and-Tumble Play

Description: Rough-and-Tumble play is a physical kind of play that involves active, whole body interaction with multiple players. Rough-and-Tumble play most often takes place on playgrounds during recess and/or before- or after-school.

Contributions to Learner Development: Through rough-and-tumble play children test the limits of their physical selves, developing strength, agility, and coordination. They also learn how to tell when they’ve taken things too far, an important level of awareness within peer relationships. Finally, the physical nature of rough-and-tumble play reenergizes children’s nervous systems which leads to greater levels of attention for academic challenges thereafter (Pellegrini, 2008).

Guided Play

The second broad category of play identified by scholars is referred to as guided play. Guided play fosters academic knowledge through playful learning opportunities that are influenced by adult interaction. Based on a social-constructivist theory of learning, guided play relies on adults to initiate a learning process, constrain learning goals, and help children maintain focus on the goals (Fisher et al, 2010; Weisberg et al, 2013). That said, guided play views each child as an active collaborator in the learning process. Children are invited to explore the materials available while adults pose open-ended questions, co-play, and model new ideas to nurture the development of academic knowledge.

The degree of adult involvement in guided play falls along a continuum. For clarity, I have separated guided play into three distinct levels. In action, guided play will enact one or more of the levels at the same time.

Materials-level Involvement

Description: At the most basic level, guided play is supported by adults through the careful selection of materials available for children’s exploration. For example, if students are learning about gardening, a teacher could gather a rich collection of books, gardening tools, seeds, and other objects for students to interact with. Once the materials are assembled, children follow their own lead as they explore the collection. Children’s museum exhibits exemplify materials-level guided play.

Contributions to learner development: Materials-level guided play contributes to learner development in many ways. First, having a wide variety of resources available fosters the development of students’ oral language skills. As students explore a prepared environment they talk about their actions and, through the exchange of discourse, broaden their oral language capacities. This kind of storytelling has been shown to have a positive effect on literacy development in later years (Nicolopolou et al, 2006). Access to a wide variety of materials also nurtures children’s fine-motor coordination, problem-solving and creativity. Finally, students build content area knowledge as they explore resources they may otherwise be unfamiliar with.

Dialogic-level Involvement

Description: At the dialogic-level, guided play involves adults taking on a supportive role as they comment on children’s discoveries and/or pose open-ended questions while observing children’s engagement with learning centers. In each case, the goal is to stimulate student thinking. For example a teacher may ask: “How many seeds are there?” or respond supportively to requests made by the children: “Oh, you want to make a sign for the carrots? Sure, I can help you spell the word carrots.” Dialogic-level involvement also makes use of narrative comments that direct attention to behaviors an adult is noticing in children’s play (i.e. “I see you have sorted the seeds into two groups.”).

Contributions to Learner Development: Dialogic-level guided play subtly scaffolds student-learning. Children acquire new language, new ideas, and new ways of thinking about the play they are engaged in as a direct result of their interaction with the adults who occupy the play-space with them. Through strategic questioning and commenting, adults stretch children’s physical, cognitive, and social-emotional capacities. The new ideas often become incorporated into children’s spontaneous play, further strengthening student-learning.

Collaboration-level Involvement

Description: At the collaboration-level, guided play swells to include teachers co-playing alongside students, modeling actions the children may not think of on their own (i.e. sorting seeds by common attributes).

Contributions to Learner Development: Collaboration-level guided play contributes to learner development in several ways. First, co-play contributes to vocabulary development. When teachers use new language during co-play children are more likely to acquire a working knowledge of the new discourse. Next, co-play can scaffold the development of critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills. Watching an adult engage with a task during play may stimulate learners to try their own hands at a similar challenge. Research warns, however, that if adults take too much control during co-play the result is equivalent to “chocolate covered broccoli” (Bruckman, 1999, p. 75); it may look good, but children will detect the difference, thus lessening the intrinsic value of the play.

Introducing “A Pedagogy of Play”

Given the valuable contributions play imparts on children’s learning and development, educators would be remiss to exclude it from academic programming across grades K - 8 (and beyond). A pedagogy of play prioritizes the value of play on student-learning, harnessing opportunities for knowledge construction through playful experiences. Playful learning pedagogies develop cognitive and social skills alongside academic content knowledge (Fisher et al, 2010; Edersheim, 2007; Gardner, 1999). The way this is fostered in learning communities will vary depending on the age of the learners you work with, but the nature of playful learning experiences will generally have three characteristics: delight, wonder, and choice (Zosh et al, 2017). Each attribute has been shown to contribute to brain development across the continuum of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

Next week’s post will take a closer look at how playful learning can be optimized to accelerate student learning across grade levels K - 8 (and beyond). In the meantime, I invite you to reflect on the following questions:

Educators:

How often do students in your classroom have the opportunity to engage in free play?
Which type(s) of free play do students engage with the most?
How could you promote the types of free play students do not often engage in?
How are you using guided play to support the development of academic content knowledge?
What gets in the way of utilizing a pedagogy of play to support student learning?
How could you use guided play to support the development of students’ mathematical thinking?
How could you use guided play to support the development of students’ literacy skills?
How could you use guided play to support students’ in being and becoming scientists?

Parents:

How often do your children have the opportunity to engage in free play?
Which type(s) of free play do your children engage in the most?
How could you promote the types of free play your children do not often engage in?
How could you use guided play to promote your children’s learning at home?

Image source: Learning through play: A review of the evidence. The LEGO Foundation (2017).

Citations:

Banerjee, R., Alsalman, A., & Alqafari, S. (2016). Supporting sociodramatic play in preschools to promote language and literacy skills of English language learners. Early Childhood Education Journal, 44: 299-305.

Bergen, D. (2009). Play as the learning medium for future scientists, mathematicians, and engineers. American Journal of Play, 1(4), 414-428.

Bruckman, A. (1999). Can educational be fun? Paper presented at the Game Developers Conference, San Jose, CA.

Edersheim, E.H. (2007). The definitive drucker. NY: McGraw-Hill.

Fadool, M.C. (2009). “We don’t serve no ice cream!”: Enhancing children’s understanding and use of literacy through play events. Journal of Reading Education, 34(3), 23 - 29.

Fisher, K., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R., Singer, D., & Berk, L. (2010). Playing around in school: Implications for learning and educational policy. In A. Pellegrini (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of play. NY: Oxford University Press, 341 – 363.

Gardener, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century. LOC: Basic Books.

Liu, C., Solis, S.L., Jensen, H., Hopkins, E.J., Neale, D., Zosh, J.M., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Whitebread, D. (2017). Neuroscience and learning through play: A review of the evidence (research summary). The LEGO Foundation, DK.

Mraz, K., Pocelli, A., & Tyler, C. (2016). Purposeful play: A teacher’s guide to igniting deep & joyful learning across the day. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Nicolopolou, A., McDowell, J., & Brockmeyer, C. (2006). Narrative play and emergent literacy: Storytelling and story-acting meet journal writing. In D. Singer, R. Golinkoff, & K. Hirsh-Pasek (Eds.) Play = Learning: How play motivates and enhances children’s cognitive and social-emotional growth (pp. 124 – 144). NY: Oxford University Press.

Pellegrini, A. (2008). The recess debate. American Journal of Play, 1(2), 181-191.

Tepperman, J. (2007). Play in the early years: Key to school success. [Policy Brief]. El Cerito, CA: Bay Area Early Childhood Funders.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1967). Play and its role in the mental development of the child. Soviet Psychology, 5, 6 – 18.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological functions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Weisberg, D., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R. (2013). Guided play: Where curricular goals meet a playful pedagogy. Mind Brain and Education, 7(2), 104-112.

White, R. (2012). The power of play: A research summary on play and learning. [White paper.] St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Children’s Museum.

Zosh, J., Hopkins, E., Jensen, H., Liu, C., Neale, D., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Solis, S.L., & Whitebread, D. (2017). Learning through play: A review of the evidence. [White paper.] DK: The LEGO Foundation.

Zosh, J., Hirsh-Paskek, K., Hopkins, E., Jensen, H., Liu, C., Neale, D., Solis, S., & Whitebread, D. (2018). Accessing the inaccessible: Redefining play as a spectrum. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1 – 12.

Vitamin Play! — Essential for Learner Growth