Part One
Intentionally Creating Play Environments for Learning
Chapter One
Brain Science and Guided Play
Brenna Hassinger-Das, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff
Drawing from discoveries from both brain science and behavioral research, the authors of this chapter argue that free play and guided playâtogether called playful learningâcan be a dynamic combination of tools for supporting childrenâs development in ways that are enjoyable but also conceptually rich. Consider the definition of guided play presented, and think about why this strategy can be such a powerful learning tool. What is your reaction to the authorsâ ideas? How does guided play seem to enhance childrenâs enjoyment of play and what they are learning as they experiment with materials and interact with others? Might it potentially interfere with childrenâs agency? If so, what are some ways to more seamlessly balance free play and guided play?
Ms. Elenaâs Head Start classroom is filled with eager 3- and 4-year-olds. Itâs center time, and the children have split into small groups. At one center, Ms. Elena has carefully selected play materialsâincluding a barn, a chicken coop, and animal figurinesâthat reflect the story lines and specific vocabulary words from books related to farm life she read aloud as part of the classâs storybook theme of the week. While Ms. Elena looks on, Sara, Javon, and Ashish arrive at the center and immediately pick up the toys. They each choose a figurine and begin playing. Sara says to Javon, âIâll be the cow!â Javon says, âOkay, then Iâll be the chicken. Iâm going to go sleep in the coop. The cow should go sleep in the barn.â Ashish says, âThen Iâll be the horse, and Iâll go sleep in the barn too.â
Together, the three children move their figurines to the coop and the barn while making mooing, clucking, and neighing sounds. Since coop was one of the weekâs focus words, Ms. Elena joins in the childrenâs play, making sure that Sara and Ashish understand the word as well as Javon does: âSleeping in the coop sounds like a great idea, Javon! A coop is a house for chickens. Remember when we saw a coop on our field trip to Maple Farm? Javon, Sara, and Ashish, where do you think the chickens would live if we didnât have a coop on the farm?â Ashish says, âI think they live in the barn!â Then Sara says, âYes, they live in the barn, because itâs nice and warm inside there.â Ms. Elena says, âThat sounds like a really good place for the chickens to live if we didnât have a coop!â
At this point, Ms. Elena steps back and the children take up a new direction for the play. She continues to listen for ways to build on the childrenâs interests and reinforce their weekly focus words during the session without interrupting their play.
Why Play?
Monkeys play. Dogs play. Rats play. Even octopuses play. And without any instruction, children of all races and genders, in all cultures of the world, invent and reinvent play in every generation. Something this ubiquitous must provide evolutionary advantages to both animals and humans. Decades of research suggest just that. In particular, free play and guided playâtogether known as playful learningâare pedagogical tools through which children can learn in joyful and conceptually rich ways, as is evident in the opening vignette. Brain science research in animals has left clues along a path that may begin to reveal playâs human biological underpinnings, but more research is needed to investigate why play promotes learning and development.
From Animal Brains to Childrenâs Behavior
Perhaps the most striking finding about play comes from research with animals in which playâspecifically, rough-and-tumble playâhas been shown to promote early brain development. For example, playful rats act more appropriately in social situations than rats that do not play (Burgdorf, Panksepp, & Moskal 2011). These findings offer a potential model of how play may help develop childrenâs social functioning and brain architecture.
A growing body of behavioral research establishes relationships between childrenâs play and development in several areas, including language (Toub et al. 2018), executive functions (Tominey & McClelland 2011), mathematics and spatial skills (Fisher et al. 2013), scientific thinking (Schulz & Bonawitz 2007), and social and emotional development (Dore, Smith, & Lillard 2015). One reason that play might be such a valuable pedagogical tool is that it features the precise contexts that facilitate learning. A research field called the science of learning has identified four key ingredients of successful learning: Learning occurs best when children are mentally active (not passive), engaged (not distracted), socially interactive (with peers or adults), and building meaningful connections to their lives (Hirsh-Pasek et al. 2015). These features are evident in play situations, including the one in Ms. Elenaâs classroom:
Javon is mentally active when he thinks about where he learned the name of the place where chickens sleep and then uses the word coop appropriately. Sara is engaged when she chooses to be the cow and moves in concert with Javon and Ashish instead of being distracted by other groups at play. Ms. Elena made the word coop more meaningful for the children by making a connection to the childrenâs visit to Maple Farm. Finally, the children were socially interactive when they built a play scenario that involved all three of them, with Ms. Elena joining in as a scaffolder.
These types of playful interactions between children and adults may be essential for supporting healthy social and emotional development. Guided play in particular features this type of social interaction and may lead to promising outcomes for learning and development.
What Is Guided Play?
Most researchers agree that play is fun, flexible, voluntary, and intrinsically motivated; it involves active engagement and often incorporates make-believe (Fisher et al. 2010; Lillard et al. 2013; Pellegrini 2009; Sutton-Smith 2001). Guided play maintains the joyful child-directed aspects of free play but adds an additional focus on learning goals through light adult scaffolding (Weisberg et al. 2016). It offers an opportunity for exploration in a context specifically designed to foster a learning goal. As such, it features two crucial elements: child agency (the child directs the learning) and gentle adult guidance to ensure that the child progresses toward the learning goal. Research suggests that guided play is a successful pedagogical tool for educators in a variety of areas (Weisberg et al. 2016). This chapter describes some examples of how preschool teachers can use guided play in the classroom to build specific language, mathematics, and spatial skills.
Language Development
Guided play is a model setting for language learning. For example, infusing vocabulary instruction in guided play fosters word learning for all preschoolers (Han et al. 2010; Toub et al. 2018). One study tested the effectiveness of word learning through guided play against a more teacher-directed learning activity (Toub et al. 2018). All children participated in shared book reading and then reviewed half of the vocabulary words through guided play and the other half through a picture card word-recall activity. The guided play resembled the learning taking place in the opening vignette. After play-based word learning, children defined the target words more readily than they did after picture cardâbased word learning.
Mathematics and Spatial Skills
Guided play is also effective for fostering spatial skills, which are important in and of themselves and are also tied to later mathematics success (Verdine et al. 2017). For example, a study with preschoolers (Fisher et al. 2013) compared childrenâs ability to learn about geometry and shapes through guided play, free play, and direct instruction. In the guided play condition, the adult followed the childrenâs lead and scaffolded the interaction. Children in this group learned more about geometry and shapes than those who participated in either the direct instruction condition, where the children listened passively while the adult delivered the content in an enjoyable way, or the free play condition, where children interacted with the shapes in whatever way they wished.
To envision how a similar effect might occur in the classroom, imagine a different center in Ms. Elenaâs room:
Pablo, Keisha, and Nari arrive at a table filled with tiles of different shapes. They all pick up pieces and begin snapping Magna-Tiles together. Nari says, âIâm going to build a tower! I canât get these pieces to fit.â Ms. Elena is observing the children and chooses this moment to join in and say, âWhat shapes do you have, Nari?â Pablo says, âNari has a square.â âThatâs right, Pablo. Nari has a square. Nari, can you find another square?â Nari holds up a square. Ms. Elena says, âWhat makes that a square?â She pauses to let the children think about it, then continues, âIt has four sides that are all the same length.â She then says, âI wonder if itâs possible to make a bigger square using the pieces you are holding up.â Keisha says, âHmm ⊠I want to try!â The children look at each other and lay the pieces downâeventually discovering that by putting all four of the squares together, they create a larger square. Ms. Elena notices their discovery, and says, âWow! You made a bigger square! It still has four sides, and all of the sides are the same length. Perhaps you can use this square as part of the tower you want to build, Nari.â
Ms. Elena wove the definition of a square into the childrenâs play, and she also encouraged the children to push themselves to make an important discovery about the shape tiles. Guided play allows teachers to piggyback on childrenâs joy and engagement to reinforce important skills.
Child-Guided and Adult-Guided Play and Learning Experiences
Developmentally appropriate practice provides purposeful, teacher-guided support balanced with responsiveness to childrenâs choices and their self-directed initiation. The following principles describe some situations in which teachers might choose to support children as they initiate their own play experiences and some in which they provide more direct scaffolding and guidance.
Intentional teachers support child-guided learning experiences when children are
âș Exploring materials, actions, and ideas actively and making connections on their own
âș Establishing interpersonal relationships and learning from one another
âș Considering and investigating their own questions about materials, events, and ideas
âș Motivated to solve problems on their own
âș So focused on their enterprise that adult intervention would be an interruption
âș Challenging themselves and one another to master new skills
âș Applying and extending existing knowledge and skills in new ways
These behaviors and attitudes signal to teachers that child-guided experience will be particularly fruitful, but this does not exclude using other teaching strategies and planned activities. ...