I. Background/Context

After teaching children ages four-eight for about nine years, I became very interested in early literacy development. These years are foundational in terms of language and cognitive development. Children are not only learning to decode and encode words; they are learning to interpret, “decode” and make sense of the world around them (Cohen, 2004). The classroom is a multi-faceted framework in which to explore these issues. However, I often found that the school playground provided a more natural environment in which to observe the communicative and social tendencies among my students.

While I was a teacher, I observed play activities; during these observations, I saw more varied dimensions to each child than I had in the classroom. For my students and others, the playground was a social gathering place of varied discourse. It was during recess that I was able to record these authentic, relatively unstructured literacy activities and discourse. Many of these observed “playground literacies” served to inform many of my instructional decisions. Some of these “playground literacies” were: letter writing between students, designing of playground maps or using new vocabulary and/or syntactic structures when calling to each other from the slide. These events contributed to the literacy profiles I created for each student in my class. It made me realize that, when viewing students as readers and writers, it is critical to understand the ways in which they weave language into their worlds of play. Social and recreational activities give a very different (and perhaps more authentic) view of a child’s communicative skills. They reveal the ways in which children, through comfortable interaction, learn about and use language. I would like to turn these casual observations into a more systematized investigation. I would like my research to contribute to the field of early literacy.

II. Problem Area: Play in the Context of Literacy Standards

Specifically, I want to focus on play. I think this is a critical area of study and timely. Over the last several years, there has been increased federal pressure on early childhood programs, emphasizing academic performance and early literacy. While early literacy is critical, it does not seem that the federal legislation supporting “standards-based universal pre-k” is grounded in developmental theory or has been informed by child psychologists or educators. I think this research area needs to be elevated from being secondary or tertiary in schools (and in academia) to being essential. I think this research area is particularly relevant in light of the No Child Left Behind Act (2001). This act established the Early Reading First program which funds programs to support the school readiness of preschool-aged children, particularly those from low-income families. Roskos and Christie remind us that, “This program lays out a well-defined early literacy program that for the most part emphasizes direct instruction in essential early literacy skills and deemphasizes play-based approaches” (viii). However, a large body of research supports the notion that play is critical to cognitive development in the early years. I am interested in exploring this contradiction. I think this is a particularly urgent issue because well-designed early childhood programs (particularly in low SES areas) can have a significant impact on a child’s future learning (need citation—there are so many). If we are going to take care of our nation’s children, our children, we need to provide them with early school environments that don’t simply force state-mandated standards but use developmentally appropriate methods to instruct our children. By preserving play in schools and training teachers on how to value the literacy observations they make during play, we will encourage our students to own their language and literacy skills and not just adopt the “teacher’s language” while in a classroom.

According to Macoby and Jacklin (1974), oral language “scripts” are co-constructed and tell observers a great deal about a child’s world. To this effect, they write that, “Children use their personal and cultural knowledge of events (shopping, cooking, weddings, street scenes, and television settings) to build scripts together. Using the outline of their daily life experiences, children create new scripts through shared predictability and collaborative novelty” (116). This notion inspired me to further research the ways in which these “scripts” can be studied during play, to further understand language development as it relates to a child’s background and SES status. Children write their own oral “scripts” when given the time, space and freedom to do so. My contention is that this is critical to their literacy and cognitive development. Children need to engage in play activities in order to develop these skills. Removing play from early childhood curriculum minimizes literacy opportunities.

III. Questions

Some questions I hope to answer are: What specific literacy activities are present during play? Why is play being discouraged in today’s preschools and kindergarten classrooms? What is the “research base” to support this? What is the nature of literacy activities during play? How are narratives different among students from different SES backgrounds? What do these narratives tell teachers about children’s literacy development? How do teachers privilege some children’s narratives over others? What is the impact of a child’s socioeconomic status on their literacy development, as evidenced by activities during play?

IV. Implications

I hope that one of the implications of this kind of study would be increased research and funding directed towards the field of play (specifically links between play and literacy). The oral language and linguistic patterns during play will provide greater information about a child’s background and what s/he is bringing culturally to the classroom; ultimately, these findings have a great potential to provide a more thorough literacy profile of children and thus inform instructional decisions made by teachers. Additionally, I hope that another implication of this kind of study would be increased attention to the seminal importance of a carefully organized and monitored play curriculum. I hope that this kind of investigation would encourage teachers and practitioners to realize the symbiotic relationship between literacy development and play. A major implication of this study could be the requirement of these kinds of programs in schools, as well as funding for the required teacher training.

III. Theoretical Framework and Skeletal Overview of Existing Research

Ø Theoretical Frame: Transactional Theory of Language Development (as developed by Whitmore)

“Shaping of language is accomplished through the myriad language transactions

that involve children with others. The language is generated by the child

but is changed in transactions with others by their comprehension or lack

of comprehension and by their responses” (Goodman et al., 1987:34)

• Incorporates Piaget (theory of constructivism, 1967) and Halliday (social-semiotic, 1975)
• Relates to restrictive vs. responsive teacher language
• Invention of children’s literacy knowledge vs. society’s construction (Whitmore et al 293)

§ Next steps: More research on transactional theory

§ Drawing on concepts in Vygotsky - Mind in Society (1978)

§ Interrelationship between learning and development

§ Researcher/Centers in this field (whose names keep popping up):

· Vygotsky, Piaget, Chrystie, Zigler, Halliday, Heath, Paley, Snow, Singer

· Yale Child Study Center is devoted to play and early learning

· Learning is not development but it engenders mental development that set in motion developmental processes (Vygotskyian idea)

· What children can do with assistance demonstrates their potential and their mental development more than what they can do alone, Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) (Whitmore et al, 295)

Need to do lots more research on Vygotsky, early childhood education, etc...

Ø Play as symbol system that is critically relevant to young children’s literacy and cognitive developmentàPolicy Implications

“In play, children behave above her average

age, free to invent and explore culturally patterned activities (language and literacy)

that they may not have confidence or authority to examine outside of

play. It is a kind of testing ground for language” (Vygotsky (1978: 102, as found in Whitmore):

§ Cognition and Language: Research based connections between cognitive competence and high quality pretend play (Bergen)

· Processes involved: receptive and expressive language, mental representation, transformation of objects and actions, dialogue, negotiation, problem solving and goal seeking, perspective taking

§ Access to oneself: Without given time, space to express selves, will children be able to maximize potential for language acquisition? Or, will young children be limited in terms of the ways that they can explore themselves and their being?

· Further research: Theory of Mind, Framing, language and cognition, current issues/policies in Early Childhood Ed., Head Start. Etc…

§ Literacy: Play encourages and supports literacy

· Again, Vygotsky and Piaget are critical here and I need to learn more about them.

§ Play as text, literacy oriented space for expressing and constructing knowledge

§ “Medium to test their hypotheses about written language and to expand their developing literacies” (Whitmore et al 309)

§ Express selves through language and text (literacy)-sense of control over their own expression

§ Teacher as mediator

§ Further research: play and social emotional learning, early language/cognition, class: Text, Tools and Culture(?), teacher as mediator (Montessori notions?)

Importance of the ‘Symbolic’ Words: Children construct and represent meaning through multiple symbol systems

§ Dyson (1989): child development as resolving tensions among symbol systems, social activity, talk, pictures, actions---modifying, shaping of stimulus

§ Early expression comes in many forms, not just the written (ELL, children with learning challenges)

§ Further research Semiotic research (emphasis on social) (Saussure, Derrida, Barthes, Baudrillard, Halliday) and cultural codes, Reggio Emilia (early childhood philosophy, ‘100 languages of children’) Gardner (1983) multiple intelligences, Malaguzzi (1998)

Ø Nature of My Potential Research: Classroom Process Studies

o Observation and research of classroom process, activities

§ Reading, writing, listening, speaking=organic, holistic, unified, codependent process, coexistence

§ Literacy is not “dumped” into children but they construct within a societal frame

§ Bring meaning and take meaning from text

§ Children’s composition of texts as composition of their existence in multiple social worlds (Dyson, 1993)

o Critical discourse analysis (Gee, 1999)

§ Classroom discourse (Cazden), cultural notions played out

§ Moving away from “centrality of print” (Gunther Kress, Multimodal Discourse)

· Early childhood: not print based yet, attuned to the “multimodal” first (physical, music, emotion, art, shapes=all different languages through which to express themselves)

Further research: Heath (Ways with Words: a seminal piece), other classroom process studies)

V. References

Bergen, D. (2002) ‘The Role of Pretend Play in Children’s Cognitive Development’,

Early Childhood Research and Practice (4)1, URL (consulted September 2007): http://ecrp.uiuc.edu

Cohen, Jonathan. (2001) Introduction. In Jonathan Cohen (Ed.), Caring

Classrooms/Intelligent Schools: The Social Emotional Education of

Young Children (3-29). New York: Teachers College Press.

Gardner, H. (1983) Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York:

Basic Books.

Gee, J.P. (1999) An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Mehod. London: Routledge.

Gentile, L. The Oral Language Acquisition Inventory (OLAI): Linking Research and

Theory to Assessment and Instruction, Goleta, CA: 1994.

Maccoby, E.E. and C.T. Jacklin. The Psychology of Sex Differences. Stanford, CA:

Stanford University Press, 1974.

Mungo, D., and Rosenblitt, D. (2001) “Helping Emotionally Vulnerable Children:

Moving Toward and Empathetic Orientation in the Classroom.” In Jonathan

Cohen (Ed.), Caring Classrooms/Intelligent Schools: The Social Emotional Education of Young Children (59-76). New York: Teachers College Press.

Oliver, S. and Klugman, E. (2007) “Building a Play Research Agenda: What Do

We Know About Play? What New Questions Do We Need to Ask?” Exchange, 14-17.

Roskos, K., and Christie, J. (2004). “Examining the play-literacy interface: A critical

review and future directions” in Edward Zigler, Dorothy G. Singer, and

Sandra J. Bishop-Josef’s Children’s play: the roots of reading. Washington,

DC: Zero to Three Press. 116.

Schank, R. and R. Abelson. Scripts, plans, goals and understanding: An inquiry

into human knowledge. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1977.

Whitmore, K., Martens, P., Goodman, Y. and G. Owocki. (2004). ‘Critical Lessons from

the transactional perspective on early literacy research’, Journal of Early

Childhood Literacy,(4)291-325).