Play In Early Childhood Education Research Articles

Pedagogical photo documentation for play in early childhood education and care

ABSTRACT This study explored options for pedagogical photo documentation in early childhood education and care (ECEC) practices to hear the voices of children, parents, and guardians in ways that make developing the documentation manageable for practitioners. Two Japanese kindergartens participated in an action research project entitled ‘Wall Newspapers for Children’. Classroom teachers composed and provided daily pedagogical photo documentation focused on children’s free play and later shared it with the children and their parents or guardians. A total of 194 parents and guardians completed a questionnaire about the documentation’s influence. Narrative episodes of children’s play revealed that the documentation mediated the following dispositions of children’s participation: (1) encouraging children to participate in their new environment and get involved in subsequent play activities for several days, and (2) getting the children to develop and create play activities by themselves. The questionnaire results showed that the documentation enhanced the parents’ and guardians’ communication with their children and with other parents, practitioners, and children in the classroom, encouraging them to talk about their children’s play and learning. The implications of these findings for capturing and improving the quality of ECEC through meaning-making discourse are discussed.

Play in Early Childhood Education and the Perceived Impacts of Accountability and Rigor

Exploring explored principals' and teachers' perceptions concerning the role of play in early childhood programs was this quantitative inquiry. All early childhood participants identified play as a learning tool but noted it was being eliminated from the curriculum due to high stake accountability. There was a significant difference between administrators and early childhood educators concerning the purpose of play. Implications for early childhood curriculum and school district policy were determined.

‘Uncharted territory’: teachers’ perspectives on play in early childhood classrooms in Ireland during the pandemic

ABSTRACT School closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic have disrupted the education of 91% of students worldwide. As a critical process in supporting young children’s resilience, play is increasingly recognised as a valuable pedagogical strategy within a shifting educational landscape during the pandemic. This study reports on findings from a survey on play in early childhood education of 310 early childhood teachers during primary school closures in Ireland. Eighty-two per cent of teachers recommended play strategies to parents during remote teaching and home schooling and almost all teachers (99%) intended to use play as a pedagogical strategy upon school reopening. Teachers believed play was an especially important pedagogical tool in supporting young children’s social-emotional development, learning and transition back to school. Over a third highlighted uncertainty surrounding capacity to use play upon school reopening given COVID-19 regulations, emphasising the need for greater guidance to support teachers’ commitment to play-based pedagogical strategies.

STEAM to R-SLAMET Modification: An Integrative Thematic Play Based Learning with R-SLAMETS Content in Early Child-hood Education

STEAM to R-SLAMET Modification: An Integrative Thematic Play Based Learning with R-SLAMETS Content in Early Child-hood Education

Ideology and Modern Tasks of Early Childhood Play and Education

유아기 놀이와 교육은 다양한 관계를 맺으며 의미화 되었다. 놀이의 의미는 다양한 층위에서 어떠한 영역들과 연결되었는가에 따라 그 성격이 결정되었으며, 유아교육과 연결된 놀이는 교육이라는 틀 내에서 교육적 놀이로 이해되었다. 이는 사실상 놀이 그 자체의 의미이기보다 교육으로 재현된 놀이에 대한 이해인 것이다. 따라서 유아교육에서 이해된 놀이는 교육 이데올로기라 할 수 있다.유아교육에서 놀이의 이데올로기는 크게 두 가지로 나눌 수 있다. 하나는 교육을 중심으로 놀이를 바라보고자 한 이데올로기이다. 이것은 유아교육의 시작 이래 교육을 위해 수단화되고 의미화된 놀이다. 다음의 이데올로기는 아이들의 놀이에서 교육적 의미를 찾고자 놀이의 의미를 교육의 의미로 해석한 이데올로기이다. 이는 놀이는 그 자체로 유아 존재이기에, 놀이에서 나타나는 앎의 과정을 교육으로 이해하고자 한 것이다. 유아교육에서 이 두가지 이데올로기는 시대를 달리하며 순차적으로 나타났다. 그러나 앞의 이데올로기가 뒤의 이데올로기를 완전히 교체한 것은 아니다. 이들은 오늘날 유아교육에 여전히 교육적 놀이로 공존하고 있다. 최근 탈근대로의 시대적 변화는 이러한 이데올로기로부터 벗어나려는 시도로 나타난다. 각각의 이데올로기는 유아들에 대한 복합적인 시각의 단면만을 반영하고 있을 뿐 그 자체의 의미를 드러내지 못하기 때문이다. 따라서 이러한 이데올로기의 현대적 과제는 놀이를 교육으로 의미화하거나 중심화하기보다는 차연의 존재로서, 먼저는 외재성을 통해 드러나는 놀이와 교육의 얼굴과 대면하여 응답함으로 나아갈 것을 제안한다. 이때의 응답은 스스로 현현하는 놀이와 교육의 부름에 대한 적극적 대응을 의미한다.Early childhood play and education became meaningful by establishing a variety of relationships. Since the meaning of play varies practically, the nature of play is determined how you think of play. So far, play in early childhood education has been an understanding within the framework of education. Thus, the play that was identified in education is said to be the ideology of early childhood education. The ideology of play in early childhood education may be significantly classified into two sections. One is an ideology that seeks to view play centering on education. This is a play that has become a method and meaning for education since the beginning of early childhood education. The other one is an ideology that interprets the meaning of play as the meaning of education in order to fine education meaning in children’s play, because play itself is a child’s existence, thus it is intended to understand the process of knowing in play via education. These two ideologies in early childhood education appeared sequentially in different times. However, it does not mean that the latter ideology did not completely replace the former ideology. They still coexist in early childhood education today as educational play. The recent change of the era of post-structuralism appears to be an attempt to escape from such ideologies, because each ideology reflects only a cross-section of a complex perspective on children and cannot reveal its own meaning. Therefore, the modern task of such an ideology suggests proceeding by responding face-to-face with the faces of play and education revealed through existence of a difference, rather than meaning or deciding play and education. The answer to this refers to an active response to the call to play and education that manifests itself.

유아교육에서 놀이의 자리매김에 관한 자문화기술지

이 연구는 개인의 이야기를 주변화하지 않고 핵심적 주체로 드러내기 위한 자전적 이야기식의 자문화기술로 놀이이상주의자였던, 그러나 교육자였던 내가 가진 문제의식에서 출발하여 교육에서 놀이의 자리매김의 과정이 어떻게 변화되는지 살펴보고자 하였다. 나는 놀이가 전부라는 이상을 실현하기 위해 공동육아와 대안교육을 했으며, 놀이 공간으로 숲을 찾았다. 그리고 그 속에서 겪게 되는 경험과 상심을 통해, ‘교육에서 놀이의 자리매김‘에 대한 변화 과정을 겪었다. 이야기는 놀이를 교육의 도구로 보는 것에서 시작한다. 이후 놀이이상주의자로 자리매김하게 되었다. 놀이이상주의자로 본 모든 놀이에는 교육이 있었다. 놀이가 곧 교육이었다. 그러나 놀이가 이상화 되고 있었던 그 놀이 현장에서 아이들은 교육을 소환했다. 그들이 가진 본능으로 교육을 소환하고, 그 소환의 한 통로로 교사인 나를 활용하였다. 누구나 할 수 있을 것 같은 놀이 지킴이, 그리고 관찰자와 기록자에 머물러 있던 난 아이들에 의해 교육자로 다시 소환 받았다. 교육의 출현은 나로 하여금 놀이와 교육이 서로를 응대하고 있음을 발견하게 하였다.

Examining early childhood teachers’ attitudes and responses to superhero play

Research highlights that early childhood teachers (ECTs) hold varied opinions on the value of superhero play (SP) to young children’s learning and development. This study sought to investigate how ECTs in Victoria are responding to superhero play, and to examine the beliefs that underpin their responses. Interviews were conducted with eight ECTs from the Bayside area in Melbourne. The study revealed that while the majority of the teachers interviewed responded to children’s superhero play in a variety of ways, there were a number of barriers to supporting superhero play in early childhood education and care settings. This paper concludes by identifying the value of ECTs engaging in critical reflection to ensure that their responses to superhero play are based on professional knowledge that is informed by theory and research.

Multi Perspectives on Play Based Curriculum Quality Standards in the Center Learning Model

Multi Perspectives on Play Based Curriculum Quality Standards in the Center Learning Model

Lessons Learned from Norway on Risky Play in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)

Risky play is defined as thrilling and challenging forms of play that have the potential for physical injury and has been linked to developmental and health benefits for children in the early years. Currently, in Western contexts, children’s opportunities for risky play is decreasing. Social factors such as practitioner and parental attitudes and beliefs have been found to impact children’s opportunities to engage in risky play. In risky play research and literature, Norway is regarded as a less risk-adverse Western country. Therefore, this research aimed to understand the impact of social factors on children’s affordances for risky play in a Norwegian Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) context. Research was conducted at a Norwegian ECEC institution and participants included 28 children, aged 3 to 4 years, and 4 ECEC practitioners and 5 parents. The study employed participant observation field notes and semi-structured interviews with parents and practitioners. This research identified themes in social factors that may contribute to children’s affordances in risky play in ECEC, including assumptions about childhood, parents and practitioner attitudes, and pedagogical practices.

Children’s use of environmental features affording risky play in early childhood education and care

ABSTRACT Risky play is defined as thrilling and challenging forms of play that have the potential for physical injury and has been linked to development and health benefits for children in the early years. These benefits include risk-assessment skills, increased physical activity and well-being, and promoting social competencies and resilience. Currently, in a Western context, children’s opportunities for risky play are decreasing and at the same time, childhood inactivity and coinciding health concerns are on the rise. Risky play may help ameliorate some current health problems for children. This research aimed to increase understanding of how children use affordances (environmental factors that intersect with and influence human behaviours) for risky play. Physical environmental factors have been found to influence children’s affordances for all play, including risky play. The study employed a deductive analysis of participant-observer field notes and focused-video observations in order to identify how children utilize indoor and outdoor environmental features for risky play. Data was interpreted through Gibson’s theory of affordances and was then fit to established taxonomies of environments for children’s risky play. Research was conducted with children, ages 3–4 years, at a kindergarten in Norway. Findings identified environmental affordances for risky play that were actualized by children in this study. We propose that findings from this study may be useful in considering the physical design of early childhood education play spaces.

Barriers for Outdoor Play in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) Institutions: Perception of Risk in Children’s Play among European Parents and ECEC Practitioners

ABSTRACTRisk aversive perceptions and practices among ECEC practitioners and parents have proven to be an important reason for the decline of young children’s opportunities for free outdoor play. Yet, there are also cultural differences in the perception of children’s risky play. This study aims at examining the factors that ECEC practitioners and parents experience as barriers for children’s outdoor play, especially those associated with risk. ECEC practitioners and parents in five different European countries (Greece, Portugal, Estonia, Croatia and Norway) received questionnaires about their perception of children’s outdoor play. The sample consists of 32 ECEC practitioners and 184 parents. Results show that parents and ECEC practitioners from Norway are less risk aversive to children’s play than those from the southern European countries. Traffic is a barrier for outdoor play among parents from all countries (above 50%), and stranger danger is particularly noticed in parents from Greece (80.6%) and Portugal (62.9%), whereas in Norway this value is only 13.3%. The mean average age from which parents allow their children to play outside is quite different between the participating countries, ranging from 5.8 years in Norway to 11.8 years in Greece. In total, fear of children getting injured and adults’ own concern/anxiety are only mentioned as barriers by 9.4% and 3.1% of ECEC practitioners, respectively. Lack of play spaces (74.3%) and poor play facilities (80%) are also considered obstacles to letting children play outside by Greek parents, whereas Portuguese ones emphasized media alerts (61.3%). Our results suggest a differentiated approach between countries to tackle the reported barriers to children’s outdoor risky play.

Video art as digital play for young children

AbstractIn the 21st century, along with fine arts, media art has become an important genre for young children. Undoubtedly, early visual arts give children a powerful language with which to express themselves aesthetically, cognitively and creatively through the use of symbolic representations. However, digital play remains a controversial issue in early childhood education, causing many schools to delay implementing digital arts. Recently, a number of international scholars have studied how digital technologies relate to children's learning experiences at school, arguing that open‐ended digital devices (eg, tablet computers, cameras and video recorders) may allow children to produce more creative content, such as drawings, photos and films. This study explored the role of video art in early visual arts education by using digital devices in a summer workshop in Hong Kong on video making, applying the digital play framework to the data collected. The findings revealed that the children who participated were able to explore the professional device through epistemic play. Meanwhile, they were able to use film language to share their toy‐playing stories and make their own 1‐minute video through ludic play. In this study, the children engaged in concurrent exploratory activities, using a digital video recorder and toys to create innovative and imaginative play. The findings of this study increase practitioners' and leaders' awareness of the role of digital play in early childhood education. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic? Digital arts initiatives in early childhood education have been discussed around the world; however, the implementation of digital arts learning projects has been a challenging undertaking in schools. The digital play framework has been introduced in the previous literature. This framework helps teachers observe, plan for and integrate the use of still‐camera technologies in play‐based learning. What this paper adds This study aims to offer practical advice on the integration of video art in children's digital play activities. It adopts a theoretical lens related to video making to examine techniques and engagement among children in the Asia‐Pacific region. It supplements the existing digital play framework with additional indicators associated with learning to use video cameras through play. Implications for practice and policy This study sheds new light on the application of open‐ended digital devices in children's play and learning. The results highlight the value of children's play in digital arts and the possibility of integrating digital arts into the early childhood curriculum in schools.

Exploring the pedagogic culture of creative play in early childhood education

We present a conceptual analysis, grounded in empirical data, of how young children’s creative play is framed by the ‘pedagogic culture’ within which the child is playing. Drawing on data from a research study with the broad aim of documenting children’s creative play in Western play-based early childhood education, we gathered exploratory qualitative observations, self-initiated iPad video diaries and researcher-led activities to describe children’s creative play. We adapted the Analysing Children’s Creative Thinking Framework as a starting point for coding and the analyses focused on three contextual cues within the pedagogic culture – space, interpersonal collaborations and materials. We ground our discussion in a contextualist theoretical frame to demonstrate that in isolation, each contextual cue presents a degree of framing to children’s creative play. When analysed as a synergy of contextual cues, however, we begin to see that the dynamic make-up of each of the contexts, and the interplay among them, create a ‘pedagogic culture’ that transforms children’s creative play. We present ‘stories’ of each pedagogic culture that we observed, to describe how children’s creative play manifested within each culture.

The occurrence of pretend play in early childhood education in Romania – an investigative study

ABSTRACT At preschool age, it is generally accepted that children’s main pursuit is play. In particular, pretend play has a major role in supporting a preschooler’s learning processes. Early pretend play involves object substitution, before later progressing to the incorporation of invisible objects. The purpose of the presented study was to validate that pretend play contributes significantly to children’s emotional, social, physical and intellectual development and can achieve the skills promoted by The Curriculum for Preschool Education in Romania. A questionnaire-based survey was undertaken, consisting of factual items (age, grade teacher), closed questions with pre-coded answers that were easily quantifiable and open questions that required analysis. The questionnaire was administered to a non-probabilistic sample, consisting of 80 kindergarten educators which were arbitrarily selected from nine kindergartens. The findings support the hypothesis of the advantages of pretend play in relation to The Curriculum for Preschool Education in Romania.

Early Childhood Teachers’ Views and Teaching Practices in Outdoor Play with Young Children in Singapore

A large amount of research has been conducted on play and in recent years the disappearance of play has been questioned (e.g., Brown in Kindergartners get little time to play. Why does it matter? 2016; Ebbeck and Waniganayake in Play in early childhood education: learning in diverse contexts, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2016). Researchers and practitioners alike have expressed serious concerns that academic pressures on the curriculum have reduced the amount of time given over to play (Nicolopoulou in Hum Dev 53:1–4, 2010). This paper raises some important issues in relation to outdoor play and presents a research study conducted in Singapore—a highly urbanised country. The research examined early childhood teachers’ views on the value of outdoor play and their teaching practices in outdoor play with young children. Findings showed that most teachers enjoyed conducting outdoor activities; however, they were concerned about the lack of physical and human resources. At a follow up sharing of the research results, teachers were able to suggest some ideas to cope with the challenges identified in the study findings. Implications are drawn for practitioners, education policymakers, and for town planners working in urbanised countries like Singapore.

Play meets early childhood teacher education

Recent policy changes connect play in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings explicitly to learning, and to later school-learning outcomes, calling on early childhood (EC) educators to incorporate intentional teaching into their practice. Given these recent policy changes, the purpose of this propositional article is to raise awareness and promote discussion about the current place of play in initial early childhood teacher education programs in Australian universities and the vocational education and training (VET) sector. The article initiates dialogue by contributing a rhizomatically-informed analytical snapshot of publicly available information from course outlines and subject guides in EC initial teacher education (ITE) in 20 Australian universities and the VET sector. This rhizomatically-informed analytical snapshot showed that the word ‘play’ was absent or occurred at relatively low frequency in course and subject descriptive material. The least frequent occurrence was in materials from ITE degree-level courses. While the snapshot does not delve into the full course and subject content (and makes no claims to do so), the rhizomatic methodological approach used leads us to ask whether ‘play’ is being overlooked in the delivery of ITE and VET courses for ECE. Recent quality ratings of ECEC services in Australia support the idea that for beginning and experienced educators, the knowledge base may be less robust than assumed when it comes to combining intentional teaching with play-based learning and the achievement of child outcomes. At the very least, we propose that this warrants further investigation.

遊びの質を高める保育アセスメントモデルの検討 ―「子ども向けクラスだより」の取り組みから―

遊びの質を高める保育アセスメントモデルの検討 ―「子ども向けクラスだより」の取り組みから―

Professor da Educação Infantil e a formação em nível superior no Piauí: do ideal ao real

Este artigo tem por objetivo mapear os professores que atuavam na Educação Infantil,no Piauí, sem formação inicial adequada em nível superior para atuar nesta etapa, partindo daseguinte problemática: Onde estão os professores cuja formação inicial em nível superior nãoatende às exigências legais para atuar na Educação Infantil? Trata-sede um estudoquantitativo, com base nos Microdados do Censo Escolar da Educação Básica do ano de 2013e é recorte de uma pesquisa de Doutorado em Educação. Recorremos aos postulados de Gatti(2004), Kishimoto (2005), Oliveira-Formosinho (2005),Tardif (2007),Oliveira (2011, 2012),Campos et al (2011), dentre outros. Constatamos a existência de 45 cursos de diferentes áreasatuando na Educação Infantil em 2013. O mapeamento nos fez concluir que a realidade daEducação Infantil, no aspecto investigado – a formação docente- não sofre grandes variaçõesde uma Gerência Regional de Educação (GRE) para outra, guardadas as devidas proporções,considerando a composição de cada gerência. Trata-se, portanto, de uma realidade muitoparecida.

Affordances for 1- to 3-year-olds’ risky play in Early Childhood Education and Care

This article focuses on how Early Childhood Education and Care institutions provide for 1- to 3-year-olds’ risky play—a previously little researched topic—utilizing data from an exploratory, small-scale study investigating aspects of risky play in the age-group. The main findings describe how three essentially different Early Childhood Education and Care centers provide different opportunities for risky play. These environments are assessed with the theoretical concept of affordance and suggest that versatile, flexible, and complex environments and equipment—with little objective risk—are optimal for children’s risky play in this age-group. Being a new topic, the affordance assessment is discussed in relation to a standardized measurement, the Infant-Toddler Environment Rating Scale—Revised edition. Findings indicate that the two approaches partly coincide but also that there are discrepancies. Interpretations and implications are discussed.

Play and Preschool Children Who Are Deaf: A Review of the Literature

The purpose of this study was to provide a narrative review of the literature of studies on deaf children play. Electronic searches of databases including EBSCOhost, ERIC, Deaf Education related journals, and Google Scholar were undertaken using terms such as deaf play, deaf play and literacy, deaf play and school and deaf play and language, deaf play and cognition. Relevant articles on the deaf children play extracted were synthesized narratively. The results of the analysis were interpreted using descriptive analysis, percentages, frequencies and emerging themes. The data showed most of the studies focused on comparing deaf children play behaviors to those of the hearing peers. Findings on deaf children social and cognitive play were inconsistent. Several issues in this analysis point to implications for future research, teacher preparation and teacher intentionality in the implementation of play in early childhood education (ECE) classrooms.