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{The Nature of Children's Play}
{By David Fernie}
{General}
{516}
{4}
'
Credits
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Source
ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education,
Urbana, Ill.
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Contents
Sensorimotor Play
Pretend Play
Games With Rules
The Adult Role In Children's Play
For More Information
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Education and Kids
Raising our Kids
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In play, children expand their understanding of themselves and others,
their knowledge of the physical world, and their ability to
communicate with peers and adults. This digest discusses children's
play and its relationship to developmental growth from infancy to
middle childhood. The digest also suggests ways in which educators and
other adults can support children's play.
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Sensorimotor Play
In what Piaget (1962) aptly described as sensorimotor practice play,
infants and toddlers experiment with bodily sensation and motor
movements, and with objects and people. By 6 months of age, infants
have developed simple but consistent action schemes through trial and
error and much practice. Infants use action schemes, such as pushing
and grasping, to make interesting things happen. An infant will push a
ball and make it roll in order to experience the sensation and
pleasure of movement.
As children master new motor abilities, simple schemes are coordinated
to create more complex play sequences. Older infants will push a ball,
crawl after it, and retrieve it. When infants of 9 months are given an
array of objects, they apply the same limited actions to all objects
and see how they react. By pushing various objects, an infant learns
that a ball rolls away, a bile spins, and a rattle makes noise. At
about 12 months, objects bring forth more specific and differentiated
actions. At this age, children will throw or kick a ball, but will
shake rattles.
In a toddler's second year, there is growing awareness of the
functions of objects in the social world. The toddler puts a cup on a
saucer and a spoon in her mouth. During the last half of this year,
toddlers begin to represent their world symbolically as they transform
and invent objects and roles. They may stir an imaginary drink and
offer it to someone (Bergen, 1988). Adults initiate and support such
play. They may push a baby on a swing or cheer its first awkward
steps. Children's responses regulate the adult's actions. If the swing
is pushed too high, a child's cries will guide the adult toward a
gentler approach. In interactions with adults such as peekaboo,
children learn to take turns, act with others, and engage others in
play.
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Pretend Play
As children develop the ability to represent experience symbolically,
pretend play becomes a prominent activity. In this complex type of
play, children carry out action plans, take on roles, and transform
objects as they express their ideas and feelings about the social
world (Garvey, 1984).
Action plans are blueprints for the ways in which actions and events
are related and sequenced. Family-related themes in action plans are
popular with young children, as are action plans for treating and
healing and for averting threats.
Roles are identities children assume in play. Some roles are
functional: necessary for a certain theme. For example, taking a trip
requires passengers and a driver. Family roles such as mother, father
and baby are popular, and are integrated into elaborate play with
themes related to familiar home activities. Children also assume
stereotyped character roles drawn from the larger culture, such as
nurse, and fictional character roles drawn from books and television,
such as He-Man. Play related to these roles tends to be more
predictable and restricted than play related to direct experiences
such as family life (Garvey, 1984).
As sociodramatic play emerges, objects begin to influence the roles
children assume. For example, household implements trigger
family-related roles and action plans, but capes stimulate superhero
play. Perceptually bound younger children may be aided by the
provision of realistic objects (Fein, 1981). Even three-year-olds can
invent and transform objects to conform to plans.
By the age of four or five, children's ideas about the social world
initiate most pretend play. While some pretend play is solitary or
shared with adults, preschoolers' pretend or sociodramatic play is
often shared with peers in the school or neighborhood. To implement
and maintain pretend play episodes, a great deal of shared meaning
must be negotiated among children. Play procedures may be talked about
explicitly, or signaled subtly in role-appropriate action or dialogue.
Players often make rule-like statements to guide behavior ("You have
to finish your dinner, baby"). Potential conflicts are negotiated.
Though meanings in play often reflect real world behavior, they also
incorporate children's interpretations and wishes. The child in a role
who orders a steak and piece of candy from a pretend menu is not
directly copying anything he has seen before.
Construction play with symbolic themes is also popular with
preschoolers, who use blocks and miniature cars and people to create
model situations related to their experience. A kind of play with
motion, rough and tumble play, is popular in preschool years. In this
play, groups of children run, jump, and wrestle. Action patterns call
for these behaviors to be performed at a high pitch. Adults may worry
that such play will become aggressive, and they should probably
monitor it. Children who participate in this play become skilled in
their movements, distinguish between real and feigned aggression, and
learn to regulate each other's activity (Garvey, 1984).
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Games With Rules
Children become interested in formal games with peers by age five or
younger. Older children's more logical and socialized ways of thinking
make it possible for them to play games together. Games with rules are
the most prominent form of play during middle childhood (Piaget,
1962).
The main organizing element in game play consists of explicit rules
which guide children's group behavior. Game play is very organized in
comparison to sociodramatic play. Games usually involve two or more
sides, competition, and agreed-upon criteria for determining a winner.
Children use games flexibly to meet social and intellectual needs. For
example, choosing sides may affirm friendship and a pecking order.
Games provide children with shared activities and goals. Children
often negotiate rules in order to create the game they wish to play
(King, 1986). They can learn reasoning strategies and skills from
strategy games like checkers. In these games, children must consider
at the same time both offensive alternatives and the need for defense.
Many card games encourage awareness of mathematics and of the
psychology of opponents. Such games can be intellectually motivating
parts of pre- and primary school curriculum (Kamii & DeVries, 1980,
Kamii, 1985).
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The Adult Role In Children's Play
These general guidelines may be helpful:
* Value children's play and talk to children about their play.
Adults often say "I like the way you're working," but rarely, "I
like the way you're playing."
* Play with children when it is appropriate, especially during the
early years. If adults pay attention to and engage in children's
play, children get the message that play is valuable.
* Create a playful atmosphere. It is important for adults to
provide materials which children can explore and adapt in play.
* When play appears to be stuck or unproductive, offer a new prop,
suggest new roles, or provide new experiences, such as a field
trip.
* Intervene to ensure safe play. Even in older children's play,
social conflicts often occur when children try to negotiate.
Adults can help when children cannot solve these conflicts by
themselves (Caldwell, 1977). Adults should identify play which has
led to problems for particular children. They should check
materials and equipment for safety. Finally, adults should make
children aware of any hidden risks in physical challenges they set
for themselves.
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For More Information
Bergen, D. (1988). PLAY AS A MEDIUM FOR LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Caldwell, B. (1977). "Aggression and Hostility in Young Children."
YOUNG CHILDREN, 32, pp. 4-13.
Fein, G. (1981). "Pretend Play in Childhood: An Integrative Review."
CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 52, pp. 1095-1118.
Garvey, C. (1977). PLAY. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kamii, C. (1985). YOUNG CHILDREN INVENT ARITHMETIC: IMPLICATIONS OF
PIAGET'S THEORY. New York: Teachers College Press.
Kamii, C., & DeVries, R. (1980). GROUP GAMES IN EARLY EDUCATION:
IMPLICATIONS OF PIAGET'S THEORY. Washington, DC: National Association
for the Education of Young Children.
King, N. (1986). "Play and the Culture of Childhood." In G. Fein & M.
Rivkin (Eds.), THE YOUNG CHILD AT PLAY. Washington, DC: National
Association for the Education of Young Children.
Piaget, J. (1962). PLAY, DREAMS, AND IMITATION IN CHILDHOOD. New York:
Norton.
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Credits
ED307967 88 The Nature of Children's Play. ERIC Digest.
Author: Fernie, David
ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education,
Urbana, Ill.
THIS DIGEST WAS CREATED BY ERIC, THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION
CENTER. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT ERIC, CONTACT ACCESS ERIC
1-800-LET-ERIC
This publication was prepared with funding from the Office of
Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education,
under OERI contract. The opinions expressed in this report do not
necessarily reflect the positions or policies of OERI or the
Department of Education.
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