The Value of Play

THE VALUE OF PLAY

By Debbie Boileve

We would like to thank the parents and staff members who were able to join us for our recent seminar on the value of play.  This is a subject that is near and dear to our hearts at Cherry Preschool.  Many young children across the nation are being bombarded with developmentally inappropriate curriculum because their schools are feeling pressured by parents, school boards, and standards-driven expectations in the early grades of elementary school.  We have held on strongly to our belief that young children learn best through the context of play.  At our seminar it was wonderful to listen to varying perspectives that all supported the same cause.  I would like to re-cap some of what we shared for those of you who were unable to attend.

DEBBIE’S THOUGHTS ABOUT PLAY

I began the evening by describing some theory and research that support play-based learning.  Jean Piaget, the renowned psychologist, studied cognitive development for more than fifty years.  Briefly stated, according to Piaget, play provides children many opportunities to interact with materials and construct knowledge about their world.  Lev Vygotsky, equally known for his contributions on cognitive development, emphasized how interactions with people foster this development.  Central to Vygotsky’s theory is the idea that development occurs when someone who is more skilled at the task guides children through more difficult tasks.  Play in preschool is, therefore, a primary source for contributing to children’s cognitive development since play creates opportunities for children to interact with peers and teachers and to learn from them.  In addition, Vygotsky claimed that when children use objects to represent other objects in play, they set the stage for abstract thought.  Both Piaget and Vygotsky believed that the development of symbolic thinking is the foundation of cognition.  This should give us all a new appreciation for our children’s wonderful world of make believe!

During the 1970’s and 80’s, Israeli psychologist Sara Smilansky did notable research on the impact of socio-dramatic play on cognitive and social-emotional development.  She observed three to six year olds in a number of preschool settings in the United States and Israel.  She followed these children through the second grade and concluded that their ability to engage in socio-dramatic play was linked to many skills important to school success.  These skills included: better verbalization, richer vocabulary, higher language comprehension, better problem solving strategies, more curiosity, a better ability to take on the perspective of another, better control of impulsive actions, more group participation, more empathy, more innovation, greater imagination, longer attention span, and better social-emotional adjustment.  This impressive list of accomplishments all happen as a result of creative curriculum planning and skillful teaching done by experienced early childhood educators like those in all of our CherryPreschool classrooms.

I concluded my portion of the seminar with my favorite argument against introducing formal instruction in the preschool years:  Children’s brains just aren’t ready yet.  According to David Elkind, child development expert and researcher, children need to reach “the age of reason” before they have the ability to understand rules and are able to reason.  The age of reason is what Piaget referred to as the stage of concrete operations.  Children reach this stage roughly between the ages of five and seven.  Although it is possible that a four or five year old could reach the age of reason, it is much more likely that this will happen in kindergarten and beyond.  The ability to reason and understand rules cannot be taught to children.  It is a matter of development.  Adults can drill children with monotonous rote facts, but when it comes to reasoning and rules, the children have either reached this level of development or they haven’t.  No matter how much money is spent on books and materials and no matter how adanced technology may become, children will continue to develop in the same way and at the same pace that they always have!

PLAY FOR CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

Rhonda Cohen, our Child Development and Inclusion Director, continued our discussion on play as it applies to our Inclusion Program. Rhonda asked the question, "What do you do when your child has special needs and this thing called play, which is supposedly the natural work of children, the thing that children choose as their preferred activity, the thing that most children come to effortlessly, is in reality yet one more challenge for your child to face?"

She answered that because a child’s play skills might be limited by his/her particular type of special need, we have to break down the sequence of skills involved in play and actually teach those skills step by step so that the child has an opportunity to experience the same benefits that typically developing children gain from play.

She continued to say that our job is to teach those skills in the classroom by continually assuming the role of the "play coach."  First, we have to help the child with special needs to notice or visually scan the environment so s/he can begin to make independent choices with respect to playing first with specific toys or in specific areas of the classroom and next with specific classmates.  Next, we have to help the child learn how to initiate an interaction or respond to another child’s initiation.  Once a child can initiate and respond, we move on to coaching the child to sustain the interaction and finally to expanding an interaction with respect to ideas, language, toys, and materials.

Rhonda emphasized that facilitating play between children of all abilities is also beneficial to typically developing children.  It teaches them to be tolerant, accepting, and respectful of individual differences as well as empathic.  This better prepares children for elementary school where they will be exposed to all types of learners.  Rhonda concluded that, by encouraging all of our children to play with one another, we demonstrate that we as a society value all our children equally and have hopes, expectations, and dreams for every child.

CHERRY TEACHERS’ THOUGHTS ABOUT THE VALUE OF PLAY

Two of our Cherry teachers spoke next. Bea Douma from the Red Room and Anne Donoghue from the Purple Room livened things up with their presentation.  They began by leading us through a tricky version of Head and Shoulders.  This activity woke up our bodies and our brains and gave us a glimpse at how much learning is actually involved in every activity we do at preschool.  The teachers continued by showing hands-on examples of materials that strengthen a variety of readiness skills.  They also prepared an informative handout describing the skills developed in a Cherry Preschool classroom.  If you would like a copy of this handout, please stop by the office or click here.

DISTRICT 65 KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS’ THOUGHTS ABOUT THE VALUE OF PLAY

Our final speakers were District 65 kindergarten teachers Lara Galicia and Frances Collins from Willard School.  Frances Collins mentioned that parents sometimes ask her if their child is at an academic disadvantage coming from a play-based preschool.  She said she answers with a resounding “no”!  Brain research shows that the pathways for reading develop between the ages of three and seven.  She said that it is challenging for kindergarten teachers since learning standards can be in conflict with what teachers know to be true about development.  She reassuringly told parents not to worry – children will learn their letters and learn to read.  The ability to read did not click in for her own son until he was six and a half.  These skills need to happen at their own pace.  She said that it is astonishing what children learn by the end of their kindergarten year.  Interestingly, it is not what children don’t have when they get to kindergarten that is notable; it is what they bring with them (from their preschool experience).  When children come with the pieces they need to succeed in a school setting (e.g.: following directions and school routines, positive feelings about school, social-emotional readiness, etc.) it is easy to learn the required curriculum!

Lara Galicia (a parent of a Cherry Preschool graduate) stated that her classroom has not changed that much over the years.  She played with children in the past and she plays with them now.  She mentioned that she has a child with special needs in her classroom this year.  Without play, his school experience would be a struggle.  He builds skills at playtime that help him with his academic pursuits.  Lara stated that she doesn’t understand why parents wouldn’t want their children to play in preschool.  She explained that we should take advantage of children’s fantasy world while we can.  It goes away far too soon as it is.  She went on to say that the word kindergarten translates to garden of children.  It should be just that – a rich and beautiful place where there is joy.  She said it should not be a place where children are sitting at their desks doing worksheets all day. 

Lara said that one of the greatest things that children learn in a play-based preschool is to never give up, to keep on trying.  This building up of stamina and confidence helps children develop perseverance in school.  Having the ability to persist at a task is a very important quality for young learners. In developmentally appropriate preschools, children also learn about cause and effect, sequencing, and connecting to the real world when they play.  Lara referenced a PBS show about young men from Somalia wanting to learn to drive.  They had no previous experience with cars.  Having never played with them or explored them by pretending to drive made this a very challenging task!  Children construct knowledge about cars and other things in their world while they play.  Both Lara and Frances said that the qualities that children bring with them from Cherry Preschool are invaluable.  They create community faster, have an easier time solving problems, they understand “you can’t say you can’t play,” and they have the ability to form relationships with each other and adults.  These qualities help them to be ready for learning.

A CHERRY PARENT’S THOUGHTS ABOUT THE VALUE OF PLAY

Kendra Morrill, one of our parents and our Board President, shared a personal anecdote with us at the end of the seminar that was a perfect conclusion to our evening:

My older son Alex, a Cherry graduate now a world-wise first grader, was asking my younger son Trevor, who is in the Blue Room, what he was doing right now in his classroom.  Trevor told Alex that they were “doing” birds.  I asked Trevor what he was learning about birds, and he looked at me with distain and said, “No, mama, we’re not learning about birds, we’re doing birds.”  Alex looked at Trevor and said emphatically, “No, Trevor, you are learning but you don’t even know it!”  And I, of course, smiled because Alex had figured out Cherry’s magic – that kids learn so much through play, but they’re having so much fun that they don’t even realize they’re learning.                    

WHAT PARENTS CAN DO TO PROMOTE PLAY-BASED LEARNING                         

Both Frances and Lara mentioned that they could only squeeze about forty-five minutes of play into their six-hour school day.  They also mentioned that sadly, some kindergarten teachers are more structured and don’t have time to squeeze in any play.  At Cherry Preschool, we believe parents have the power to influence policies in their children’s schools by educating themselves in the importance of play and making their feelings known to their school administrators and school boards.  Parents need to be vocal and passionate about this cause and should not be afraid to voice their opinion.  If you want to learn more about the importance of play-based learning, here are some articles:

Go to the Alliance for Childhood website:
http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/

Check out their articles, webinars, & reports:
Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School
Fact sheet on kindergarten testing
Congressional briefing on early education
Crisis in the Kindergarten (Boston Globe – August 30, 2009)
Developmentally Appropriate Practice in the Age of Testing (Harvard Education Letter – May/June 2009)
Kindergarten Cram (New York Times – May 3, 2009)

Scroll down the page to find many more recent articles to read…

Another interesting article from the George Lucas Foundation website Edutopia:
http://www.edutopia.org/student-accountability-school-readiness