Learning Through Play

PETER K SMITH, BA, PhD

ANTHONY PELLEGRINI, PhD
Goldsmiths, University of London, UNITED KINGDOM
University of Minnesota, USA
(Published online September 2008)

Topic
Play

Introduction
We define play, review the main types of play and their developmental benefits in
various areas.

Subject: What is Play?

Play is often defined as activity done for its own sake, characterized by means rather
than ends (the process is more important than any end point or goal), flexibility
(objects are put in new combinations or roles are acted out in new ways), and positive
affect (children often smile, laugh, and say they enjoy it). These criteria contrast play
with exploration (focused investigation as a child gets more familiar with a new toy or
environment, that may then lead into play), work (which has a definite goal), and
games (more organized activities in which there is some goal, typically winning the
game). Developmentally, games with rules tend to be common after about 6 years of
age, whereas play is very frequent for 2- to 6-year-olds.

The Research Context

Almost all children play, except those who are malnourished, deprived, or have severe
disabilities. Between 3% and 20% of young children’s time and energy is typically
spent in play1, more so in richly provisioned niches.2 If young children are temporarily
deprived of play opportunities, for example being kept in a classroom, they play for
longer and more vigorously afterwards.1

As children invest time and energy in play, and there are opportunities for learning
when they do play, there seems to be a need for play. This is true of young mammals
generally, although other mammals show much less variety of play forms than human
children. These findings suggest that play has developmental benefits. Benefits might
be immediate, long-term, or both. However, the exact role of play in learning is still
debated. A prevailing “play ethos”3, 4 has tended to exaggerate the evidence for the
essential role of play. Nevertheless, correlational and experimental evidence suggest
important benefits of play, even if some benefits can also be obtained in other ways.

Locomotor play, including exercise play (running, climbing, etc.), involves large body
activity and is generally thought to support physical training of muscles, for strength,
endurance, and skill. Exercise play increases from toddlers to preschool and peaks at

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early primary school ages, when the neural and muscular basis of physical
coordination and healthy growth is important, and vigorous play obviously provides
good opportunities for this;5 later, it declines. There is evidence that active,
playground-type breaks can help young children concentrate better at subsequent
sedentary tasks,1 consistent with the cognitive immaturity hypothesis that the “need to
exercise helps young children to space out cognitive demands for which they have less
mature capacities.”6

Social play refers to playful interactions between children and parents or caregivers in
children up to 2 years old, but increasingly with other children as social play increases
dramatically from 2 to 6 years of age. At first, playing with one partner is complex
enough, but by 3 or 4 years old a play group can consist of three or more participants,
as children acquire social coordination skills and social scripts. Parallel play,
common in 2- and 3-year-olds, is when children play next to others without much
interaction. Some play is solitary.7 This type of play can be physical, incorporate
objects or language, be pretend, or include all of these aspects. Rough-and-tumble
play, including play fighting and chasing, can look like real fighting, but in play
fighting children are often laughing, kicks and blows are not hard or do not make
contact, and it is usually done with friends.

Object play refers to playful use of objects such as building blocks, jigsaw puzzles,
cars, dolls, etc. With babies, this play is mouthing objects and dropping them. With
toddlers, this is sometimes just manipulating the objects (e.g., assembling blocks), but
sometimes involves pretend play (e.g., building a house, feeding a doll). Play with
objects allows children to try out new combinations of actions, free of external
constraint, and may help develop problem solving skills. Any benefits of object play
need to be balanced against those of instruction, bearing in mind the ages of the
children, the nature of the task, and whether learning is for specific skills, or a more
general inquisitive and creative attitude. The more marked benefits may be for
independent and creative thought,8 though the evidence is equivocal.9

Language play At around 2 years old, toddlers often talk to themselves before going
to sleep or upon waking up. This is playful, with repetition and sometimes laughter.
Children use language humorously at 3 and 4 years old. (“I’m a whale. This is my
tail.” “I’m a flamingo. Look at my wingo.”) Language skills--phonology (speech
sounds), vocabulary and meaning (semantics), grammar (syntax), and pragmatics
(using language appropriately in social situations)--are rapidly developing in the
preschool years. Some phonological skills can be developed in the solitary
monologues when children babble to themselves in their cot, but most benefits of
language learning probably come in sociodramatic play.

Pretend play involves pretending an object or an action is something else than it really
is. A banana is a telephone, for example. This play develops from 15 months of age
with simple actions, such as pretending to sleep or putting dolly to bed, developing
into longer story sequences and role play. Sociodramatic play, common from around 3
years of age, is pretend play with others, sustained role taking, and a narrative line. It
can involve understanding others’ intent, sophisticated language constructions, and
development of (sometimes) novel and intricate story lines. Children negotiate
meanings and roles (“You be daddy, right?”) and argue about appropriate behavior
(“No, you don’t feed the baby like that!”).

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Many learning functions have been advanced for pretend and especially sociodramatic
play.10 One hypothesis is that it is useful for developing preliteracy skills, such as
awareness of letters and print, and the purpose of books.11, 12, 13 The narrative structure
of sociodramatic play sequences mirrors the narratives of story books. For these
benefits, some structuring by adults is helpful (in maintaining a story line, having
suitable materials including plastic letters, books, etc.).

Another hypothesis is that pretend play enhances emotional security. A child who is
emotionally upset, for example, by parents arguing or the illness or death of someone
in the family, can work through the anxieties by acting out such themes in pretend
play, with dolls for example. Play therapists use such techniques to help understand
children’s anxieties; and most therapists believe that it helps the child work towards a
resolution of them.14

A relatively recent hypothesis is that pretend play enhances theory of mind

development. Theory of mind ability means being able to understand (represent) the
knowledge and beliefs of others; that is, that someone else can have a different belief
or state of knowledge from yourself. This does not happen until the age of late 3 or 4
years old. Social interaction with age-mates seems to be important for this, and social
pretend play (with siblings or with other age-mates) may be especially helpful, as
children negotiate different roles and realize that different roles entail different
behaviors.15 While these benefits are plausible, there is little experimental evidence;
the correlational evidence suggests that social pretend play is helpful but is only one
route to acquiring theory of mind.16

Key Research Questions and Gaps

We lack descriptive information on the time and energy spent in various forms of
play. Without this we cannot understand the putative benefits of play. Further, while
play may have many positive benefits, this is not always so. Play fighting is viewed
ambivalently by nursery staff as many staff find it noisy and disruptive, and believe it
often leads to real fights. In fact, research suggests that during the primary school
years, only about 1% of rough-and-tumble play bouts turn into real fighting. However,
this is more frequent for some children who lack social skills and are rejected by
playmates. These children often respond to rough-and-tumble play aggressively.17

A related area of concern has been war play (play with toy guns, weapons, or combat
superhero figures).18 Carlsson-Paige and Levin19 contrasted a developmental view that
play including war play is a primary vehicle for children to express themselves, with a
sociopolitical view that children learn militaristic political concepts and values
through war play. There is not a large research base on which to make informed
judgments about whether the concerns are justified. Dunn and Hughes20 found that 4-
year-old, hard-to-manage children showed frequent violent fantasy and the extent of
this was related to poorer language and play skills, more antisocial behaviour, and less
empathic understanding at the age of 6 years. This does suggest concerns for the
effects of such play on disturbed children.

Implications
In contemporary societies, adults are usually involved in children’s play, providing
play environments and toys. Preliteracy benefits of play can be enhanced by providing
paper, crayons, and plastic letters. Exercise benefits of play can be enhanced by

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providing challenging forms of climbing apparatus. Creative play can be enhanced by

providing lego-type bricks to stimulate creative construction activities.

Nursery staff can work with children to structure their play and give it more
educational value by including activities such as jigsaw puzzles, color and pattern
matching games, and materials like water, sand, and clay that children can manipulate
and by enhancing sociodramatic play.10 Such play tutoring involves providing suitable
props (play house, clothes for role play, hospital equipment, etc.), taking children on
visits to stimulate their imagination (to a hospital, zoo, etc.), and suggesting play
themes and helping children to develop them. Play training can be one enjoyable and
effective way of improving skills in language development, cognitive development,
creativity, and role-taking .21

Most experts in play research believe that a balanced approach is best. There should
be good opportunities for genuine free play. Also, there should be some active
involvement of adults in structuring some play, as in play tutoring. And, increasingly,
as children get older, there is a need for direct instruction. The balance between types
of play is a matter of continuing debate. As all types of play provide different
opportunities, a blended program in preschool, with plenty of opportunities for free
and structured play, is likely to be best for children and to provide them with a happy
and stimulating environment in which they can flourish.

REFERENCES

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12. Roskos K, Christie J, eds. Play and Literacy: Research from Multiple
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To cite this document:

Smith PK, Pellegrini A. Learning through play. In: Tremblay RE, Boivin M, Peters RDeV, eds.
Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development [online]. Montreal, Quebec: Centre of Excellence for
Early Childhood Development and Strategic Knowledge Cluster on Early Child Development; 2008:1-
6. Available at: http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/documents/Smith-PellegriniANGxp.pdf. Accessed
[insert date].

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