PLAYing on the Road to Literacy

Transcription

1 PLAYing on the Road to Literacy

2 Early memories How many of you?

3 Built a fort or treehouse in the backyard? Got to leave it up for more than one day?

4 Heard your mom (or dad) say: Just go play!?

5 Remember going to the park with your friends to play ball WITHOUT being part of a league?

6 Had a dress up box?

7 Played car games?

8 I know we've come a long way, We're changing day to day, But tell me, where do the children play? --Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam) Tea for the Tillerman, 1970

9 Worries Educators fret that school officials are hacking away at recess to make room for an increasingly crammed curriculum. Psychologists complain that overscheduled kids have no time left for the real business of childhood: idle, creative, unstructured free play. Public health officials link insufficient playtime to a rise in childhood obesity. Parents bemoan the fact that kids don t play the way they themselves did or think they did.

10 What has changed? Family Structure Time families working more hours Messages about good parenting National trend to focus on academic fundamentals Passive entertainment Safety?

11 Spotlight on: PLAY Imagination, improvisation, flexibly, exploration Choices Problem-solving Cooperation Feelings Become more aware of their own real interests, Symbolic representation Confidence, competence

12 Types of play and outcomes Undirected Navigate the need for new skills we don t even know about Negotiation, conflict resolution, rule-making Discover own areas of interest Unscheduled spontaneous Developmental benefits Directed Build skills Acquiesce to adult rules and concerns May follow adult interest Structure Developmental benefits

13 To think about A tale of three children

14 Spotlight on: Literacy What s the BIG DEAL? 1. Reading outcomes relate to school and life opportunities 2. Children enter school with widely diverse background skills "achievement gap widens as time passes (begins as a preparation gap opportunity gap experience gap ) 3. Recent research findings name skills and strategies

15 Emergent literacy From the beginning (birth) For example, by age 2 or 3 many children can identify signs, labels, and logos in their homes and in their communities Tashena's mother points to a street sign and says, "See, honey, that says Green Street. That's where our house is." Emerge under right conditions relationships and interactions

16 Emergent literacy Interrelated and concurrent, not sequential: (Until 1970s, it was believed that children must learn to read before they could learn to write.) Develops from real life situations in which reading and writing are used to get things done. FUNCTION precedes form. Is learned through active engagement-- FUN

17 Emergent literacy Being read to is #1; plays a special role in the literacy development of the young child. Is a developmental process. Children move through stages in a variety of ways and at different ages.

18 Literacy is NOT AUTOMATIC INVOLUNTARY INSTINCTIVE INBORN It requires intentional interactions, opportunities, experiences, materials, teaching.

19 Literacy skills Print motivation: interest and enjoyment Vocabulary means knowing the names of things. Letter knowledge is learning that letters look different, and have different names and sounds. Print awareness means learning that in English we read from left to right, and from top to bottom. Phonological awareness means the ability to hear and manipulate the smaller sounds in words. Narrative skills means a child's ability to understand and tell stories.

20 What works? (Pianta) Explicit instruction in key skills (teaching matters) Sensitive and emotionally warm interactions (relationships matter) Feedback Verbal engagement/simulation Environment that is not overly structured or regimented.

21 Getting from EITHER/OR In play, adults do not interfere and children relax. Children express and work out emotional aspects of everyday experiences through unstructured play. When adults facilitate literacy activity in the context of play, children respond warmly by following their lead and joining in reading and writing activity they might not otherwise have experienced. (Roskos) Unstructured? Intentional? Spontaneous? Planned? Child-directed? Direct instruction?

22 to BOTH/AND Play Abstract representation one object represents something else Communication skills Self-regulation Vygotsky: children s play behaviors progress from impulsive to deliberative and thoughftul Following rules Incorporate literacy in play Problem-solving Literacy Making meaning out of letters & shapes Plan, explain, negotiate, narrate, describe Rules inherent to reading i.e. beginning to end Notes, lists, marks Comprehension & meaning

23 PLAY LITERACY 1. Play promotes the development of underlying cognitive skills, the ability to learn deliberately. 2. Play helps children develop symbolic representation. 3. Play promotes oral language. 4. Play can prepare the way by introducing contentrelated literacy skills and concepts. Leong, D. and E. Bodrove, R. Hensen, M. Henninger. (1999). Scaffolding early literacy through play. New Orleans, NAEYC, 1999 Annual Conference.

24 Play-rich can be literacy-rich Higher level play: Variety of props and objects (move from realistic to symbolic) Let s pretend this block is our phone Combining multiple roles and themes (exposure to new settings and experiences) Creating a pretend scenario (expansion from real life into play)i.e., photos Well-stocked library Arrangement Flexible schedule long, uninterrupted time block Adults plan space, time, materials, and activity in deliberate ways that create communication as well interactions between children and things in a network of possible connections and constructions (Gandini in Vecchi, 1998, p. 163).

25 Interactions: the medium for learning Interests of the child, interests of the adult Sensitive, responsive Teachable moment Intentional Interaction Good instruction for young children is embedded in relationships Based on a national study including 80% of the publicly funded pre-k programs in the country the quality of teacher-child interactions predicted student outcomes above structural factors of the classroom or teacher s level of education (Pianta, 2006, Harris Forum)

26 Play a behavioral kaleidescope (Marc Bekoff) Play is an active form of learning that unites the mind, body, and spirit. Until at least the age of nine, children s learning occurs best when the whole self is involved. Play reduces the tension that often comes with having to achieve or needing to learn. In play, adults do not interfere and children relax. Children express and work out emotional aspects of everyday experiences through unstructured play. Children permitted to play freely with peers develop skills for seeing things through another person s point of view-- cooperating, helping, sharing, and solving problems. The Value of School Recess and Outdoor Play

27 Interview with Jack Shonkoff (2008) re: From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development(2000) Absolutely early literacy experiences are very important for young children, but they're no more important than paying attention to children's social health and their emotional well-being. The quality of the relationships that children have with the important people in their lives, that those relationships and the interactions that go with those relationships and the feelings that go with those relationships actually influence the emerging architecture of the brain. They sculpt the wiring of the brain. tm

28 Interview with Jack Shonkoff (2008) re: From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development(2000) You come into your first day, whether it's kindergarten or first grade. Is it important for you to have had a rich array of early literacy experiences? Absolutely. If you know the alphabet when you enter kindergarten, or you can read some words, does that put you on the road toward success in school? Absolutely. But if you know the alphabet, or if you can read when you enter kindergarten, but you can't sit still, or you can't wait your turn, or you can't function well in a group or control your impulses, how you deal with other children, you are not going to succeed in school no matter how advanced your literacy competency is. So it's a matter of both. And I'm not saying one is more important than the other, but I'm clearly saying that they're interrelated with each other.

29 Literacy props Think about the homes and child care settings that do not have access to a lot of resources. Make a list of literacy props from the kitchen that support these experiences for children 0-3: Vocabulary Phonological awareness Conversation Print

30 Fun and Meaningful conversation props

31 Fun and Meaningful vocabulary props

32 Fun and Meaningful phonological awareness

33 Fun and Meaningful book awareness

34 Fun and meaningful print

35 Fun and Meaningful Letters

36 Singing phonological awareness

37 Meaningful print

38 Katlyn s Bedtime That s my best blanket and I go to sleep happy. I like it when my mom reads to me.

39 ELTResourceHandbook2005.pdf Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood. Fred Rogers Play is the work of children. It's very serious stuff. Bob Keeshan (Captain Kangaroo) You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. Plato If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play. John Cleese

40 References Ginsburg, K., and the Committee on Communications and Committee on Pssychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health, American Academy of Pediatrics. (2006).The importance of play in promoting healthy child development and maintaining strong parent-child bonds. Johnson, J., Christie, J. and Wardle, F. (2004) Play, Development and Early Education Leong, D. and E. Bodrove, R. Hensen, M. Henninger. (1999). Scaffolding early literacy through play. New Orleans, NAEYC, 1999 Annual Conference. Roskos, K. and Christie, J., eds. (2007) Play and literacy in early childhood: research from multiple perspectives, Roskos, K. And Hanbali, O. Creating connections, building constructions: language, literacy, and play in early childhood an invited commentary. John Carroll University, University Heights, Ohio, USA Wardle, F. Promoting Development Through Emergent Literacy Wilford, S. From Play to Literacy: Implications for the classroom.