Play Underpins Learning

In play, a child is always above his average age, above his daily behaviour, in play it is as though he were a head taller than himself - Lev Vygosky

Your child is struggling at school but you fail to see how PLAY of all things is going to help them. Don’t they need more instruction? A tutor? More lessons, more practise, homework?

Well, in short, no.

As a teacher, mum and Masters level graduate, I can tell you the biggest secret to not only your child doing well at school, but also having high levels of wellbeing for the rest of their life - play.

And if you don't trust me, listen to four leading early childhood theorists - Maria Montessori, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and Brian Cambourne. They all say that children need first hand experiences, and not the "sit and listen" model of learning provided by a lot of schools today.

There is no research whatsoever that says homework is beneficial. However, every single piece of research into early childhood development says that play is the best thing you can give to your child to support their learning.

Literacy

Literacy includes reading, writing, speaking and listening.

When children play and communicate through play, they are learning how language works and figuring out how to interact with other people. Eventually, children connect spoken language to written language, which is the key to success in school. During play, there is a a lot of language used by children, their peers and adults. There are lots of opportunities to hear, practice, and learn.

It's important to know that writing in the early years is all about expression through mark making, scribbling, and drawing. It is not always the formal version of writing you might be imagining. Children's experiences with writing in the early years are very important for their later writing capabilities.

We know that children learn about writing and how to use written texts when they can read and write for "real" reasons while they are playing. That means that if you give children the chance to use reading and writing while they are playing, they are more likely to learn to read and write.

At Discovery Time, we create play experiences that encourage children to make meaning, communicate non-verbally, tell and create stories, discuss their ideas, use their knowledge of reading and writing to look up new information, and express themselves.

By providing an environment that is rich in literacy and encourages children to progress through the developmental stages of reading and writing, children feel more confident and become much more capable readers and writers later on in their life.

Maths

Piaget, a leading early childhood theorist, saw that children perceive reality in symbolic ways. Another leading early childhood theorist, Vygotsky, extended on that to explain how it is incredibly important for children to play in order to develop abstract thought. Abstract thought is a massive task for the mathematical brain.

Fundamental maths skills are explored through play in so many ways. Maths lends itself to being discovered and understood with the hands. Children learn to count objects reliably not through rote counting, but by the physical picking up and moving of objects, consolidating 1:1 correspondence and understanding the concept of quantity as they do so.

As you can imagine, the number of possibilities for maths play investigations is huge and play could extend for a very long time with so many ways to combine the materials provided.

When children strongly develop the most foundational maths skills and embed them through play, they are much more likely to enjoy and be able to work through mathematical problems later on in life.