Playing to learn: where literacy and play collide

The article I found for this blog post - "Kindergarten as Nexus of Practice: A Mediated Discourse Analysis of Reading, Writing, Play, and Design in an Early Literacy Apprenticeship.", written by my illustrious professor :) -  is about integrating literacy with children’s natural instinct to play. The article states that, “When literacy and play combine, they support and strengthen one another, proliferating the ways for children to “do school” and increasing access for diverse learners.” The reading supports play goals, and the playing supports reading development.

If one considers how children use play to negotiate, imitate, and mediate the “real world”, it seems natural to use play to do the same for reading. Literacy is simply one aspect of the “real world” that children will have to face every day; why not let them play to develop interest and understanding?

According to Vygotsky’s popular theory on learning, learning takes place in a social context. Literacy learning is no exception. Children begin to encounter literacy in mediated settings (mediated by parents, teachers, peers, etc.) and over time  gain more control in a gradual release format. Play illuminates and promotes this social aspect of learning.

In the article, the children in the class being observed divided into three groups for literacy play. One group, composed of boys and girls, “played” school – they reproduced daily routines and imitated the teacher’s behavior (in activities such as a “played” read-aloud.). A second group, comprised of girls, appropriated and revised Disney stories to fit their own social and individual needs. The third group, boys only, enacted college sporting events. This ability to choose what and how to play allowed for learner agency over traditions of child obedience.

In these groups, children used books and multimedia tools. They “negotiated their interpretations of book and film meanings, vied for valued play roles and empowered classroom identities, maintained joint play scenarios, and protected child-controlled space…  (They) determined how Kindergarteners should act as readers and writers, leaders and followers, girls and boys.”

In a sense, combining literacy and play is just another example of integrating curricula. I think that in this, the information age, the need for play is overwhelmed by the need to learn how to use various forms of media and sign systems and by the need to learn so much information. Play is important! School is not just a place to learn stuff, it is a place to be socialized, to gain understanding of one self, one’s peers, and one’s socio-cultural landscape. Play accomplishes this. And if it can be done in a context of practicing literacy skills such as storytelling and story making, so much the better!

Wohlwend, Karen E. "Kindergarten as Nexus of Practice: A Mediated Discourse Analysis of Reading, Writing, Play, and Design in an Early Literacy Apprenticeship." Reading Research Quarterly 43.4 (2008): 332-34. JSTOR. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/20068350?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=Kindergarten&searchText=as&searchText=a&searchText=nexus&searchText=of&searchText=practice&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DKindergarten%2Bas%2Ba%2Bnexus%2Bof%2Bpractice%26amp%3Bprq%3DKindergarten%2Bas%2Ba%2Bnexus%26amp%3Bhp%3D25%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff%26amp%3Bso%3Drel%26amp%3Bracc%3Doff >.