Exploring Writing and Play in the Early Years

Nigel Hall,Anne Robinson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781136785825
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

The second edition of this text shows how play and literacy can combine to help young children develop a more complete understanding of writing, as well as literacy more generally. In addition to discussing the implications of the new Guidance for the Foundation Stage, the authors use more recent research to extend the discussion of how and why pla

CHAPTER 1

Play and writing: an overview

Introduction

If twenty years ago anyone had carried out a thorough database search looking for articles about the topic of play and writing, the searcher may well have found almost nothing. They could have found many thousands of articles about play and almost as many about writing but, as the saying goes, ‘ne’er the twain shall meet’. Play was play and writing was writing and the two did not disturb each other. Equally, if one went into a range of early years classrooms there would be play areas and there would be reading and writing activities, but they were quite distinct and separate activities. Play was only play whereas reading and writing were work.

In 1985 a group of teacher education students and their tutor (Nigel Hall) set up a home corner in a small nursery school and not only put in it all the conventional artifacts of homes, such as cookers, pans, tables and so on, but also filled this ‘home’ with relevant print-related materials (see Hall et al. 1987). They then sat and watched as the four-year-old children got stuck into their play and into the use of the literacy materials. This work was publicised through conference presentations and later articles. One of these presentations took place in London at the World Congress on Reading and the presentation was to be made by the students. After it, Nigel received a letter from a very experienced early years adviser. She told how she was in the room and when she realised it was ‘only’ students, she thought she’d move to another session. The room was so full that she could not actually get out, so she sat there feeling somewhat disgruntled. She wrote that after about five minutes her position had changed. Suddenly she was thinking, ‘How on earth have I been an early years adviser for so many years and failed to think of doing this? It seemed so obvious when the students described what they had done.’ This was most people’s reaction to the work – why had they not thought of doing something so obvious. Why this might be so will be explored later in this chapter, but one of the impacts of this research was that play and literacy became partnered in many early years settings. So much so that four years later when the British National Curriculum was introduced play and literacy were formally on the agenda.

In the second version of the English in the National Curriculum documentation (DES 1990: 35) the Programmes of Study for Writing, Spelling and Handwriting contained the statement, ‘Pupils should write in a wide range of activities. Early “play” writing, eg. in a play house, class shop, office or hospital, should be encouraged and respected.’ The Non-statutory Guidance stated (p. C14), Classroom areas with materials for writing within practical activities, and role-play areas, should be carefully planned. Here children can practise recently learned and emerging skills whilst watching and talking with each other, as well as responsive adults.’ For the first time play was related to literacy in a curriculum document that carried immense political weight. Teachers of children aged five to seven were encouraged to build literate play areas and teachers working with younger children could do the same knowing that this activity had official sanction. It was, of course, too good to be true and when the curriculum was revised, not by a panel of literacy experts but by a group of three special political appointees, all references to play disappeared. It was as if play had become a four-letter word that should not be uttered in polite educational company.

Things were to get even worse towards the end of the 1990s when the National Literacy Strategy emerged and the later document Framework for Teaching appeared. It was not the absence of any mention of play that was so problematic, after all, many teachers had wisely continued to encourage literacy-rich socio-dramatic play provision in their classrooms and settings. The problem lay in the structure imposed and its implications for time. The framework document formalised whole class teaching as the main means for teaching literacy and imposed a very highly structured and compartmentalised pattern (the ‘literacy hour’) on the teaching, both of which were backed up by heavy-handed official inspections from the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted). While the Framework was not and is still not mandatory, it took a very secure school to depart from its stipulations when Ofsted might be appearing round the corner. When this was combined with the numeracy strategy and the other demands of the National Curriculum, teachers not surprisingly claimed that play, and of course literacy-related play, had to go because there was no time available on the timetable. While the framework was directed at children in formal schooling it had its impact upon children’s play and literacy in nursery settings. The top-down nature of schooling meant that many felt obliged to be preparing children for life in a world of literacy and numeracy hours, and many settings for younger children became much more formal in their teaching methods, cutting back on rich socio-dramatic play provision.

However, not all was lost and in the year 2000 the Foundation Stage cavalry came chasing over the horizon. Not only did the Foundation Stage lay claim to the education of three- and four-year-olds but also claimed the reception class containing the five-year-olds. With the Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage (QCA 2000) play was restored to the early years curriculum. Indeed, so important is it considered that a page was given to proclaiming its importance, and it started with (p.25), ‘Well-planned play, both indoors and outdoors, is a key way in which young children learn with enjoyment and challenge.’ This of course was a claim about play in general rather than specifically about socio-dramatic play, but it was, nevertheless, very welcome to early years practitioners. But what about socio-dramatic play and literacy, and especially writing?

In the introduction to the section ‘Communication, Language and Literacy’ the phrase ‘role-play’ occurs only once on the first page in a fairly general statement:

To give all children the best opportunities for effective development and learning in communication, language and literacy, practitioners should give particular attention to:

giving opportunities for linking language with physical movement in action songs and rhymes, role play and practical experiences such as cookery and gardening. (p.44)

On the second page, play is given its own highlighted paragraph:

In play, children are given the chance to imagine and to recreate experience. As they explore situations, events and ideas, for example building with blocks or making a journey on vehicles, they improve their competence with language through social interaction, repetition and consolidation. Language is developed further and links made with literacy if, for example, in the above types of play, children are also encouraged to look at maps and plans and relevant reference books. As they play, children will practise doing and saying things that they are not really able to do, such as making a journey into space. They can capture their actions in drawing, early writing or painting, and retell events to friends, practitioners and parents. They are learning that pictures and words are symbolic ways of preserving meaning.

On the third page, the one focussing on teaching strategies, we first find the claim that:

Children are more likely to write as part of purposeful play.

and further down the page:

Demonstrating the use of language for reading and writing will be through telling stories and sharing books in a clear and lively way that motivates children. It will be through encouraging children to read and write in a variety of play and role-play situations that match their interests and stimulate dialogue, activity and thinking.

Given that this is a general introduction to communication, language and literacy, one can hardly expect specificity, and certainly within the above comments are a range of central but very generalised ideas about play and literacy. However, only a couple of them really pick up on the relationship between play and writing, so one needs to turn to the specific section on writing (pp.64-7). The document devotes two double-page spreads to writing in the Foundation Stage, one of which is devoted solely to activities designed to aid the development of writing recognisable letters, in other words, handwriting. Yet suddenly on this page the practitioner is presented with one idea about play: ‘Provide opportunities to write purposefully by, for example, placing notepads by phones or making a reservation list in a cafe.’ On the other double-page spread, which appears to be about making meaning with writing, there is an example of what children might do: ‘Marcia is playing in the cafe and writes customers’ orders on her notepad. She tells the chef, “they want pizzas.”’

It is, of course, the case that the whole area of communication, language and literacy is a huge one, and that for young children oral language will start as the dominant mode of communication and hearing things read to them will follow in significance. However, it is worth comparing not only the number of pages given to the respective topics, but also the amount of text on each page of the section on writing with the amounts that almost seem to overflow some of the pages on oral language and reading. It is as if the authors of the document were struggling to find enough to say about the topic and this feeling is reinforced by the generality and vagueness of what is there, and the utter failure to seriously indicate anything about how children might progress in their understanding of writing. It is not surprising that the richness and power of what becomes possible by linking socio-dramatic play with literacy, and particularly writing, fails to be presented in this document. It is as if there is still a reluctance to acknowledge that young children’s understanding of the nature, function and use of writing can be dramatically changed by linking it with socio-dramatic play. The rest of this chapter starts to explore why this relationship is so important.

Play in early years education

Historically, British schools, from the inception of state schooling, were work dominated. However, since the end of the nineteenth century, play has had quite high status throughout Europe among advocates for early years education. There is a long list of notable educators and researchers who have stressed the value of play for the development of children. Research has indicated that play is important physically, socially, intellectually, linguistically and emotionally. As a consequence, early years education (3–7 years) adopted more and more an approach which utilised play in all its manifestations. Even so, although play was not excluded from classrooms, it did tend to be restricted to the early years. It usually disappeared once children reached the age of seven and the demands of schooling became more formal.

Despite that adoption of play by educationalists, play was, and to a large extent still is, viewed by society at large as a non-educational process: it was all right for very young children and all right outside of school. But school, it appeared, was for learning not playing.

In the US a different kind of psychological approach led to a work and testing dominated curriculum, even with the youngest children. It was generally only in the preschools and kindergartens that play established itself. Even here it appears to be under threat. A US writer, Partridge (1988:8), says ‘true play seems to have given way to formal learning as zealous parents “push” their children to achieve’, and a survey of 103 preschoolers, their parents and teachers carried out by Rothlein and Brett (1984) found that the majority of parents did not support the idea of a large amount of time for play in preschool. One of the major reasons for this was the feeling that children needed to spend more time on academic work. It seems that the many positive messages about play from people who have studied it have, so far, been less than convincing.

This has certainly been the case in the UK where in the late 1980s one Secretary of State for Education penned several pieces in national newspapers to complain about young children doing too much play and too little work. He felt children in school needed to be made to work, not made to play.

The disinclination of parents to accept that learning can take place through play was nicely captured by the novelist Timothy Mo in his book Sour Sweet. When the son first goes to school his Chinese mother is aghast when he tells her what he has been doing all day.

She couldn’t believe what Son dropped in an aside: that they played with plasticine and flour and water in class-time. He had been doing that at home for years.

‘Bad to tell lies, Son,’ she admonished him gently.

However, later, when the son is needed to help serve in the shop, she discovers that he has no difficulty in working out the money involved. She finds it impossible to accept that he learned through play.

‘Ah Mar-Mar, we play buying things at school in play-shop with plastic meat and pretend-money’.

‘Clever boy.’ Kiss. ‘But bad to tell lies, Son.’

Play is a rather wide term, and students of play have so far failed to come up with a definition about which they can all agree. Play does cover a rich and diverse range of behaviours. However, in this book we are concentrating on one type of play – ‘socio-dramatic’ play. The term ‘socio-dramatic’ may be new to many teachers. It is essentially play in which the participants take on roles, either purely symbolically or semi-realistically. In the UK it has often been called ‘structured play’. However, the label ‘structured’ is confusing, as many different kinds of play can be structured – water play, sand play etc., and anyway, it tended to be used to imply that it was the teacher doing all the structuring. Almost all play is structured in some way and a lot of it is not done by teachers.

Even the term ‘socio-dramatic’ is not without its problems. How exactly does it differ from other activities in which participants take on roles? When exactly does socio-dramatic play stop being ‘play’ and become active learning, project work, simulation, drama, theatre, imagination and even ‘reading’, for reading has been described as ‘at root a play activity’? (Nell 1988) In this book we are not going to get bogged down in arguments about definitions. We prefer to leave our, and teacher’s, options open. As one of us wrote in an earlier book, ‘If we become too precious about the significance of differences in definitions of play, then we are in danger of neglecting possibilities which transcend the formulation of precise categories (Hall and Abbott 1991).

Perhaps three-year-old Suzy-Anne gives the simplest indication of what we mean by ‘socio-dramatic’ play:

Suzy-Anne:	Will you play a game with me?
Anne:	Yes, go and get one.
Suzy-Anne:	No, I don’t mean one in a box, I mean like being people.

(Suzy-Anne aged 3.5 years

‘Being people’ does not always require the actual presence of other individuals.

Ben’s gait was the hop, skip, and jump – proof enough that his heart was light and his anticipations high. He was eating an apple, and giving a long, melodious whoop at intervals, followed by a deep-tones ding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a steam-boat. As he drew near he slackened speed, took up the middle of the street, leaned far over to starboard, and rounded-to ponderously and with laborious pomp and circumstance, for he was personating the ‘Big Missouri’ and considered himself to be drawing nine feet of water. He was boat, and captain, and engine-bells combined, so he had to imagine himself standing on his own hurricane deck giving the orders and executing them. (From Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain)

However, Ben did need to conceive of himself in relation to other people. They were implied rather than actual. ‘William’ had problems with the actual:

‘Play houth, William,’ said Violet Elizabeth eagerly. ‘Ith suth a nith game. You an’ me be married.’

‘Red Indians an’ you a squaw?’ said William with a gleam of interest.

‘No,’ said Violet Elizabeth with distaste, ‘not Red Indianth.’

‘Pirates?’ suggested William.

‘Oh no, William,’ said Violet Elizabeth. ‘They’re tho nathty. Juth a nordinary thort of married. You go to the offith and me go thopping and to matineeth and then to the dinner and that sort of thing.’

(‘William the match maker’ from Still William by Richmal Crompton)

Life in play is like life in general, not always a bed of roses.

Traditionally, socio-dra...