{"id":9560,"date":"2024-03-29T20:56:15","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T20:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"\/?page_id=9560"},"modified":"2024-04-12T17:39:29","modified_gmt":"2024-04-12T17:39:29","slug":"play-based-learning","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"\/play-based-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"Play-based Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Play-based Learning<\/h1>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Play-based Learning is Academics<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Play is children’s work. O<\/span>pen-ended, free play helps children grow and develop, and research shows this is the most appropriate curriculum for young children ages 3-5 years old. <\/span><\/p>\n

There are different definitions of play, but it is generally agreed that play is both open-ended and joyful. <\/span>“Play is an activity where children show their remarkable ability for exploration, imagination and decision making.<\/span><\/a>” <\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Play vs. Didactic Instruction<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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A multitude of research studies \u2013 including a longitudinal, randomized control study that followed 3000 kids from pre-K through to sixth grade \u2013 show that didactic instruction before first grade can lead to both lower test scores and more behavioral problems (Marcon 1993<\/a>;\u00a0Miller 1998<\/a>;\u00a0Lipsey 2018<\/a>;\u00a0Lipsey 2022<\/a>;\u00a0Gray 2022<\/a>). For some children, didactic instruction should be delayed even longer, into later elementary grades.<\/p>

The focus on early standardized testing wrongly focuses on educating and testing half of the child \u2014 their cognitive achievement (reading, arithmetic, and so on). However, cognitive achievement in very young children requires a foundation of emotional development.\u00a0<\/p>

Play-based instruction addresses both the cognitive and the emotional aspects of children\u2019s development (Letourneau and Sobel 2020<\/a>). Didactic instruction does nothing to support young children\u2019s emotional development; in fact, the requirement to sit still and listen actually impedes it (Marcon 1993<\/a>).” –\u00a0NIFP<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Benefits of Play<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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According to the University of New Hampshire’s College of Health and Human Services, “Children need a variety of skill sets to optimize their development. Research shows that developmentally appropriate play with adults and other children provides opportunities to build the social-emotional, cognitive, language, and self-regulation skills that lead to executive function and brain development.”<\/p>

In human studies, playing enhances children’s adjustment, language, and social and emotional stability by 33% to 67%.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>

In fact,\u00a0The National Institute for Play<\/a>\u00a0explains how deeply rooted play is in the human brain, “Researchers in neuroscience have shown that play is built into the biology of all mammals. Affective neuroscientists, who study how emotions work in the brain, have proven that humans are born with seven primary-process emotional systems, one of which is play. All of these emotional systems are pre-wired in the midbrain, the source of our most basic instincts and motivations.<\/p>

When the play circuits in the midbrain are triggered, the related neurons create a cascade of activity in our higher brain functions. The more often this happens \u2014 the more often we play \u2014 the more those neurons connect and the stronger those pathways get. The neural connections created when we play are the brain wiring patterns that give us better control over our movement, our thoughts, and our emotions.”<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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How Play Supports Reading and Writing<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Research shows how children’s dramatic play is linked to learning to read and write<\/span><\/a>. <\/span>Dr. Trawick-Smith explains, “One way that play helps children in literacy areas is that it’s very symbolic. For example, when they [children] are using a toy telephone to represent a real phone, they’re using a symbol. That’s not unlike looking at a word and seeing that it represents something that’s not present, or something in real life.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Also, complex play, supported by caring teachers, gives children the confidence to take on difficult challenges like learning to read. \u201cAs every teacher knows, emotional engagement is the tipping point between leaping into the reading life … An enormously important influence on the development of comprehension in childhood is what happens after we remember, predict, and infer: we feel, we identify, and in the process we understand more fully and can\u2019t wait to turn the page. The child … often needs heartfelt encouragement from teachers, tutors and parents to make a stab at more difficult reading material.\u201d (Wolf, 2008, p 132)<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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“During the preschool years. Young children need developmentally appropriate experiences and teaching to support literacy learning. These include but are not limited to:<\/i><\/span><\/p>