Play as a literacy tool

Play can be a way to strengthen and teach literacy in the early childhood classroom. Though play is often seen as a way for children to burn off energy or take a break during the school day, play is a valuable way for young students to explore and build upon literacy skills in a real-world environment.

 When children are offered the opportunity to play within the early childhood classroom, often they will chose to re-enact scenes they see at home or at school. These "play scenes" offer the students ample chances to work together using different literacy skills. In the book, Playing Their Way into Literacies by Karen E. Wohlwend, the author writes, "In the malleable world of pretend play, children learn to work together to make, negotiate, and sustain shared meanings-interpretations of events or texts that are discussed and collaboratively accepted-as they talk and enact scenes."

Earlier in the semester, I participated in a literacy dig with three other students from my early childhood literacy class. The blog post can be viewed here.  During the dig, we explored all the ways in which literacy is used at a retail store. Today, as I was thinking about play as a strategy to develop literacy and reading Playing Their Way into Literacies I kept thinking back to the dig.

My group and I discovered throughout the dig, just how prevalent literacy is in a store and in how many ways literacy can be found, preformed, and viewed. Using play as a form of literacy development allows children to practice literacy skills in ways to prepare them for real life situations, such as visiting a store.

In todays world, many students are taught using cookie cutter literacy models that don't allow the students to add purpose and meaning to the skills they are developing. When students use play they are given time to build connections to their lives and add meaning to a wide variety of literacy practices.