Abstract
This article argues that imaginative play can fulfil a valuable role in the development of reading among pre-school children. It uses Feuerstein’s Mediated Learning Experience as a theoretical lens and defines the concepts related to imaginative play, focussing particularly on symbolic and dramatic play. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of the reading development of four pre-schoolers, aged between 5 and 6, in their home environments in KwaZulu-Natal, it shows how imaginative play is a generative aspect of early reading in the home. It is through imaginative play that the children were able to make sense of what they had read, transfer it to other contexts and explore its implications in a child-centred way. Imaginative play can take early reading from the realms of print and digital media into those of movement, dressing-up, role-playing, visual and aural stimulation – holistic and integrative ways of ‘comprehending’ the text. The article concludes with a discussion of the challenges and potential pedagogical implications of the research findings.
Highlights
What can play contribute to pre-schoolers’ reading development? There is a growing body of evidence that play is important in children’s learning, and that children’s imaginations are enormous reservoirs for their own learning (Copple & Bredekamp 2009; Hurwitz 2002)
There is very little research which has been performed in South Africa on play and learning among pre-schoolers (Aronstam & Braund 2016), and in particular, the links between play and early reading, by which we mean the precursor skills, attitudes and knowledge that children develop as part of their emergent literacy (Christie et al 2014)
We present our findings through three short reading-play vignettes which highlight some of the links that emerged between early reading and symbolic play
Summary
There is a growing body of evidence that play is important in children’s learning, and that children’s imaginations are enormous reservoirs for their own learning (Copple & Bredekamp 2009; Hurwitz 2002). Aronstam and Braund’s (2016) study indicates that educators lack personal knowledge and comprehension of the concept of play, resulting in the dearth of knowledge of how to engage unstructured play to develop the learning process. This makes teaching through the use of play difficult for many educators with the result that the tributaries of imagination, which naturally feed children’s learning, are often cut off during classroom hours. There is very little research which has been performed in South Africa on play and learning among pre-schoolers (Aronstam & Braund 2016), and in particular, the links between play and early reading, by which we mean the precursor skills, attitudes and knowledge that children develop as part of their emergent literacy (Christie et al 2014)
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