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Building Literacy Opportunities into Children's Block Play What Every Teacher Should Know
... Hassan's plan to protect his Afghan compatriots from ongoing armed conflicts is an example of how newcomers can anchor their literacies while foregrounding their identities and creative citizenship through block play. Over the past two decades, block play has been widely explored in children's literacy development (Pickett, 1998;Snow et al., 2018;Stroud, 1995;Wellhousen and Giles, 2005). We are particularly interested in exploring its possibilities for empowering students from migrant and refugee backgrounds to draw on their lived experiences and imagined identities to tell their own stories as part of classroom-based language and literacy learning. ...
... Specifically while playing with building toys and stacking blocks, linguistically diverse children incorporate abstract symbols, purposeful reading and writing, and oral language production to develop their early literacy (see, e.g. Pickett, 1998;Wellhousen and Giles, 2005). In more recent studies, Snow et al. (2015Snow et al. ( , 2018 demonstrated in literacy-enriched block centres that English-language learners can combine block play, drawing and writing behaviour (e.g. ...
In 2021, more than 80 million people worldwide will have been forced to flee their homes. Upon arrival in their new country, families may endure numerous hardships, yet succumbing to these challenges is not their single story. To understand how migrant‐background and refugee‐background children imagine more liveable futures beyond social and education barriers, financial stress and unresolved emotional issues, our study focuses on the stories that 8‐ to 10‐year‐old learners created while playing with building toys and stacking blocks in a Canadian elementary school. Drawing on the interconnected frameworks of story‐telling, identity, creative citizenship and play‐based pedagogies, our case study of 11 students illustrates that, in response to an invitation to support their real or imagined communities, learners engaged in literacy practices, built on their lived experiences and imagined strong identities to create stories of social responsibility and awareness, emphasising the human needs of securing food and fresh water, ensuring safety, and connecting and caring for the community. Our findings may encourage teachers to consider play‐based storytelling to address out‐of‐school social factors in their classrooms and to capitalise on students' inquiries to design interdisciplinary projects that can develop students' literacies and promote social activism.
... Among the hundreds of daily verbal interactions young children display in an early childhood setting, the block center is an area where language, literacy and symbolic play can thrive and therefore be observed (Cohen and Uhry 2007;Wellhousen andGiles 2005/2006). Block play is defined as any time a child manipulates proportional wooden blocks, and uses actions, and/or language to represent realistic or imaginary experiences. ...
... Among the hundreds of daily verbal interactions young children display in an early childhood setting, the block center is an area where language, literacy and symbolic play can thrive and therefore be observed (Cohen and Uhry 2007;Wellhousen andGiles 2005/2006). Block play is defined as any time a child manipulates proportional wooden blocks, and uses actions, and/or language to represent realistic or imaginary experiences. ...
This study describes symbolic representation in block play in a culturally diverse suburban preschool classroom. Block play
is multimodal and can allow children to experiment with materials to represent the world in many forms of literacy. Combined qualitative
and quantitative data from seventy-seven block structures were collected and analyzed. The observed frequency of symbolism
used for three levels of symbolism (1) pre-symbolism, (2) first level symbolism, and (3) second level symbolism was investigated.
Results indicated significant differences for first level symbolism or real-world objects. Students reported making homes
for Webkinz, indicating an ability to encode multimodally the Webkinz computer game played at home to their school block play. The implications from these findings suggest educators
should consider both a sociocultural perspective on playing and children’s out of-school experiences on learning. A research
agenda that includes multimodality as performance is critical to early childhood education.
KeywordsBlock play–Symbolism–Multimodal literacy–Technology
... Regarding yourself as a meditor, the player, pulling out blocks of the beam correctly, uses the display to foster student interest (Manning, 2020;Wellhousen & Giles, 2005; Williamson, Lovatt, & Hedges, 2020). ...
Teachers in ECE (Early Childhood Education) should have the knowledge and skills in guiding children when playing blocks, but this is not shared by most PAUD teachers in Indonesia. Therefore, this study develops a block play model that refers to the PKPK model from Hirsch and Dodge with the adjustment of conditions in Indonesia. This research is a research and development (R&D) that seeks to develop, refine (re-construct), test, and validate Masnipal-models that are easy for teachers to use and effectively develop children's creativity. This study begins with testing the PKPK model to a group of subjects to obtain data about the ability of teachers to understand and apply the model. After revisions and improvements, the model of reconstruction results was further tested. Research subjects were PAUD teachers in Cianjur (n = 42) and Bandung (n = 78). Data collection uses observation and peer assessment techniques and data analysis uses descriptive analysis techniques. The novelty of this study is the resulting Masnipal-model that facilitates PAUD teachers in Indonesia in guiding children to develop creativity through block play.
... In preschool settings, children are provided with wooden unit blocks of varying shapes and sizes for the purposes of free play; children are also sometimes asked to copy a model or a picture, with more difficult tasks requiring symbolic representation (Otsuka and Jay, 2016). Such building activity is, more often than not, recognized as an effective way to promote children's overall development (Rogers, 1985), literacy skills (Isbell and Raines, 1991;Wellhousen and Giles, 2005;Cohen and Uhry, 2011), social skills (Cohen and Uhry, 2007), mathematic skills (Casey et al., 2012) and spatial skills (Ramani et al., 2014;Cohen and Emmons, 2017). ...
Children’s block building performances are used as indicators of other abilities in multiple domains. In the current study, we examined individual differences, types of model and social settings as influences on children’s block building performance. Chinese preschoolers (N = 180) participated in a block building activity in a natural setting, and performance was assessed with multiple measures in order to identify a range of specific skills. Using scores generated across these measures, three dependent variables were analyzed: block building skills, structural balance and structural features. An overall MANOVA showed that there were significant main effects of gender and grade level across most measures. Types of model showed no significant effect in children’s block building. There was a significant main effect of social settings on structural features, with the best performance in the 5-member group, followed by individual and then the 10-member block building. These findings suggest that boys performed better than girls in block building activity. Block building performance increased significantly from 1st to 2nd year of preschool, but not from second to third. The preschoolers created more representational constructions when presented with a model made of wooden rather than with a picture. There was partial evidence that children performed better when working with peers in a small group than when working alone or working in a large group. It is suggested that future study should examine other modalities rather than the visual one, diversify the samples and adopt a longitudinal investigation.
... More specifically, very little research exists that examines young, low-income ELL students' response to a common early childhood literacy intervention-literacy-enriched play centers. For the last 20 years, many researchers have stressed that literacyenriched play can provide children with opportunities to cultivate their emergent literacy skills in interesting, low-anxiety environments (Neuman & Roskos, 1990, 1992, 1993Pickett, 1998;Wellhousen & Giles, 2005). However, of these studies, few take children's socioeconomic or linguistic backgrounds into account. ...
Although growing numbers of young English language learners (ELLs) from low-income homes enroll in U.S. schools, there remains a lack of research on how they respond to common school literacy practices including a literacy-enriched play. This exploratory study aims to examine the writing behaviors of six kindergarteners in their classroom's literacy-enriched block center. The results were varied since all children engaged in different types and frequencies of writing. However, most ELLs responded positively to the intervention and practiced their emergent writing skills. Therefore, literacy-enriched play centers can benefit early childhood classrooms serving culturally, linguistically, and socioeconomically diverse students.
... (3) play serves as a catalyst for both teaching and learning (Cooper, 2005;Walker & Spybrook, 2011;Wellhousen & Giles, 2005). This synopsis echoes an earlier review by Roskos and Christie (2001). ...
This thesis reports on a narrative case study in which I explored early childhood educators’ (ECEs) beliefs about print literacy and play pedagogies. The purpose of the study was to learn about the ECEs’ subjective views regarding how to support young children’s print literacy; the extent to which ECEs viewed play as a contributing factor in children’s print literacy development; and how ECEs appropriated their understandings of the relationship between play and print literacy. I conducted in-depth, qualitative interviews with six registered early childhood educators (RECEs) employed in privately funded childcare centres in Ontario, Canada. I asked: What can be learned about preschool educators’ funds of knowledge from stories of practice about print literacy pedagogies? What beliefs about the role of play in young children’s literacy are expressed in those stories? What obstacles to enacting play-based pedagogies are expressed? What do stories of practice reveal about the ways in which they value play? And lastly, what do stories reveal about the ways in which beliefs about play mediate
planning of curricular experiences? Interviews were transcribed and data were analyzed in a two-stage process. First I identified key issues present in each participant’s stories of practice. I then triangulated the three data sources- interpretive stories, participants’ personal narratives, and my own reflective diaries- in order to further explore these issues using critical analysis. These issues came in the form of motifs or recurring ideas. The
study found that ECEs mobilized their knowledge about play and print literacy development within routine practices. Perceived obstacles to play-based pedagogies included: (1) a desire to please students’ parents; (2) an obligation to prepare students for public school; and (3) pressures to conform to the institutional routines that governed individuals’ practices. This study contributed to my understandings of ECE practices. I hope the findings will promote critical dialogue among educators and other education stakeholders. Such a dialogue can lead to improvements in professional development programs and in ECEs’ pedagogical practices with print literacy and play.
... Leikurinn, í hvaða formi sem er, eflir samkennd, samskipti og nemendur laera að bera virðingu fyrir hvort öðru. Mikilvaegt er að börnin hafi gaman að því að laera og upplifi eigin vitneskju með því að leika sér (Melaskóli 2006). ...
Symbolic representation refers to the use of physical or psychological processes to represent an object in a symbolic form. The present study investigated the development of children’s symbolic representation using a new measure of children's block constructions. Ninety children (44 girls) in three age groups (3-4, 4-5, and 5-6 years) were randomly assigned to reproduce an example of ancient Chinese architecture using either two-dimensional pictures or a three-dimensional scale model. Children in the 3-4 age group produced significantly better constructions in the pictures condition. This picture-superiority effect disappeared in the 4-5 age group. In the 5-6 age group, there was better dimensionality in children's constructions when they used a scale model as the referent. The data identified the age of 4-5 as a critical period for the development of children's symbolic representation to transfer relational information from a scale model to their construction.
Despite the rising number of linguistically diverse students in countries where English is the primary medium of instruction in schools, there is a relative lack of research on how these students learn to write in English and respond to common classroom literacy practices. One practice found in early childhood classrooms is literacy-enriched play, but little research explores how young English language learners respond to this particular intervention. This exploratory study examines three linguistically diverse kindergarten students' use of writing materials in a literacy-enriched block centre in their classroom. Observational notes and writing samples produced by the students during block play were analyzed to determine the frequency and variety of their writing behaviours. The results indicated that all the students, regardless of language background, incorporated drawing and writing into their block play with similar frequency, although they sometimes used different writing strategies. These findings indicated that literacy-enriched centres can provide linguistically diverse students with meaningful opportunities to practice writing.
The study sought to determine if frequent story retellings with structural guidance could improve kindergarten children's use of structural elements in dictations of original stories and increase the oral language complexity of the stories. Treatments were administered to children once a week for eight weeks. After a story was read, the control children (n = 44) drew a picture about it and the experimental children (n = 38) retold the story individually to a research assistant. Story dictation pre- and posttests were administered. Analysis of covariance indicated significant improvement for the experimental group in dictation of original stories and in oral language complexity. Retelling proved to be an instructional strategy capable of improving children's dictations of original stories and oral language complexity within those stories.
This observational study investigated the effects of three types of play centers—blocks, housekeeping and a changing thematic center—on the oral language production of 21 young children, 10 females and 11 males, ranging in age from 4.8 to 6.2 years. Language samples were collected by videotaping four groups of subjects in fifteen-minute play sessions per week for five weeks as the groups rotated through the three play centers. Three hundred minutes of language samples were examined for subjects' language fluency, number of communication units, mean length of utterance and vocabulary diversity. The findings indicated that: (a) The subjects' fluency, number of communication units and vocabulary diversity measures were significantly greater in the block center than in the housekeeping center; (b) the mean length of utterance measure of the subjects' language remained consistent across the three types of centers and (c) no significant difference was found between the language production and vocabulary diversity of males and females in the three types of centers. While the results indicate that language production and vocabulary vary according to the type of center, subjects produced more oral language and used more diverse vocabulary in the block center. This seems to suggest that the block center can be an effective environment to provide young children with opportunities to develop their oral language fluency and use more diverse vocabulary.
The role of block play in the development of reading and writing is presented and discussed. A literacy-enriched block-play
center is described, and accompanying tables identify books and additional literacy materials suggested for integration into
a block-play area. Additionally, children's use of literacy props in a block-play area is presented through observations made
in two preschool classrooms. Samples of children's writing produced during spontaneous block-play sessions are included to
support examples given in the text.
The purpose of this study was to determine if the voluntary literacy behaviors of children could be increased in type and quantity through design changes by including reading and writing materials in dramatic play areas. Thirteen preschool classes were distributed into one control group and three different experimental groups: one in which thematic play with literacy materials was guided by teachers, one in which thematic play with literacy materials was not guided by teachers, and one in which books, pencils and papers were supplied in unthemed dramatic play areas with teacher guidance. The type and quantity of literacy behaviors in each of the three experimental settings were determined by direct observation prior to intervention, during intervention, and after a delayed period of time. Literacy behaviors increased significantly in all the experimental groups over the control group. Thematic play with teacher guidance yielded greatest gains; the provision of books, pencils and paper with teacher guidance yielded the next greatest gains; and thematic play without teacher guidance yielded third greatest gains. The effect of the treatments continued after a delayed period of time.
If you take a mouse to school New York Laura Geringer Books, an Imprint of HarperCollins Transition to writing: Drawing as a scaffold for emergent writers Play, dreams, and imitation in childhood
- L Numeroff
- F Bond
- P Oken-Wright
Numeroff, L., & Bond, F. (2002). If you take a mouse to school. New York Laura Geringer Books, an Imprint of HarperCollins. Oken-Wright, P. (1998). Transition to writing: Drawing as a scaffold for emergent writers. Young Children, 53(2), Piaget, J. (1962). Play, dreams, and imitation in childhood. New York Viking.
The play's the thing: Teach-ers' roles in children's play
- E Jones
- G Reynolds
Jones, E., & Reynolds, G. (1992). The play's the thing: Teach-ers' roles in children's play. New York: Teachers College Press.
Literacy development in the early years: Helping children read and write
- L M Morrow
Morrow, L. M. (2000). Literacy development in the early years: Helping children read and write (4th ed). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
The three little wolves and the big bad pig
- E Trivizas
Trivizas, E. (1993). The three little wolves and the big bad pig. New York: Simon Schuster.
Play, print, and purpose: Enriching play environments for literacy development
- S Neuman
- K Roskos
Neuman, S., & Roskos, K. (1990). Play, print, and purpose: Enriching play environments for literacy development. The Reading Teacher, 44(3), 214-221.