Role of Play in Enhancing Development

Role of looseness in Enhancing DevelopmentPlay is roughly universally recognized as an integral factor in childrens considering and increase. For archetype, Macintyre (2001, 4) quotes Isaacs 1933 description of prank Play is the crucial component in childrens contrivement, and adds that everyone concerned with young children should recognise and value the different kinds of understanding veritcapable through chance (Macintyre 2001, 3-4).Although different consort activities promote childrens in different paths, Keenan (2002) identifies a number of argonas of growth that are impacted or enhanced by play, including cognition, language and communication, fri terminately, and horny. The recent Curriculum guidance for children from trine through the reception year (Foundation Stage) ephasizes learning opportunities and experiences for example, the area of language and literacy was broadened to include communication and emphasized the splendour of commenceing literacy thr ough play and advocates play and exploration as a basis for literacy learning in the early years (Miller and metalworker 2004, 122). Within the Early Years curriculum, post play is an excellent example of a play activity that promotes many areas of splitment.Before examining the ways image play promotes development in children, it is helpful to define both play and place play. Macintyre (2001, 3) defines play as activity that is enjoyable, gives pleasure, and undertaken by the fake freely, that is, it can be abandoned at any time without blame. Play further has no conceptualise outcome the agenda can develop as play goes on (Macintyre 2001, 3). Additionally, play allows the player to develop skills which are important in non-play situations, such(prenominal) as development of social skills (Macintyre 2001, 3). Children around age trinity and four begin to enjoy imaginative employment play in twos or small groups (OHagan and smith 2004, 36).As a particular play activity, ro le play is a type of imaginative play, where children study roles outside their real population set out. Role play allows children to construct proximities between themselves and otherwises in their lives. Piagets possibility of development contends infants introductory engage in pretend play around eighteen months, acting out ideational activities and using real intents to represent imagined objects, such as pretending a television remote is a telephone (Keenan 2002, 123). Children may participate in limited role play at this point if tell by an older person.However, cooperative role play, where children instigate their own roles and story line, are rarely undertaken by children before three years of age (Keenan 2002, 200). According to Vygotsky, children engage in pretend play roles beyond their current stage in life, such as taking on adult roles, such as a parent, t each(prenominal)er or doctor, or roles as adolescents or older children(Keenan 2002, 135). Through pretend play, children place themselves in a zone of proximal development, where they play at a level which is in overture of their real capabilities (Keenan 2002, 135)Cognitively, role play promotes development in several ways. First, it allows children practice in ordering their thoughts and develop understanding. Piaget believed that children were active agents of their own learning and that the major task for them was to develop an ability to organize experiences and learn from them in a way which enables them to make sense of the world (OHagan and Smith 2004, 10). Role play activities are the highest draw of symbolic play, encompassing two types of cognitive operation which are necessary for conservation, namely reversibility and decentration (Umek and M manipulationk 2001, 56).Children are able to freely leave the roles they take on, as indicated in the free participation concept introduced in the exposition of play above. This reversibility indicates cognitively children are sur eness that they can abandon their assumed role and return to world at any time (Umek and M practisek 2001, 56). The cognitive ability of decentration involves childrens understanding that the person in the role play scenario is really them, yet is to a fault simultaneously the role undertaken (Umek and M uptakek 2001, 56).Cognitively, this means children must preserve the imaginary individuation of toys or play materials despite the fact that they are perceptually and/or functionally inadequate (the final payment being the conservation of identity) (Umek and Musek 2001, 56). In such pretend play, children learn that the objects they use can be disjointed from their normal referents, and that they can stand for other things (Keenan 2002, 135). This object will typically be resembling in some way, such as size or shape, to the pretend object in the role play, causation the children to practice analogous thinking skills where they related an item not available to them to another available object (Keenan 2002, 135).The development of language and communication skills are recognized as closely linked to childrens thinking and conceptual development (OHagan and Smith 2004, 18). In addition to cognitive development, role play offers important development opportunities in the areas of language and communication. This can be intentional, such as when parents or other older players in the role play intentionally support vocabulary development by introducing names of things during the context of play (Keenan 2002, 154). However, the probability to blather and verbally interact with others in the role play further presents a powerful way of learning even when no intentional instruction occurs (OHagan and Smith 2004, 18).In role play, children learn to use language as a multifariousness of symbolic representation, and also communicate symbolically through dramatic play (OHagan and Smith 2004, 25). Such symbolic play supercharges the development of language compr ehension (Umek and Musek 2001, 56). Fantasy role play encourages explicit and expressive speech due to its symbolic nature.Role enactment and the use of unlike objects have different functions in play and in real life, therefore the child-player-must define these symbolic transformations verbally, so that they have a clear (recognisable) meaning and are comprehensible to his or her playmates (Umek and Musek 2001, 56). In this way role play promotes the communicative skills of its players. The symbolic elements of fantasy play, like role and object transformations, enable the child to use lexicographic meanings and explicit speech (Umek and Musek 2001, 56).Socially, role play typically involves several other children and/or adults. Keenan (2002) discusses Partens theory that such cooperative play is the most complex form of play, as it includes behaviours such as social pretend play where children take on pretend roles (Keenan 2002, 200). The children involved in the role play talk to one another as part of the play, developing their imaginative situations in a co-operative manner. Umek and Musek (2001, 56) report Smilanskys (1968) argument that role play activities promote the childs social development.When children use role enactment, they have to reach a consensus almost the play theme, the course of events and the transformation of roles and play materials. This can only be achieved when individuals transcend their egocentrism and develop the ability to empathise (Umek and Musek 2001, 56).Children further build relationships with the other children or adults with whom they play. Although such relationships are often temporary, such play causes children to express a preference for certain friends and play regularly with them during the Early Years check there is usually, but always, some preference for play with children of the same sex, but there is still a good deal of mixed play (OHagan and Smith 2004, 36). Role players share symbolic meanings with ea ch other and assign imaginary roles in their pretend play, both providing opportunities for social development (Keenan 2002, 203).Co-operative pretend play also is usually based on the childrens understanding of the social rules of their culture (Keenan 2002, 135). Therefore, a child behaving badly in the role play will be punished by the child in the parent role. Vygotsky held that as such role play was an important context in which children learned roughly the social world (Keenan 2002, 135). Childrens play is constrained by the rules which guide behaviour in these roles, and, because of this, they learn about the social norms that are expected of people (Keenan 2002, 135).Role play can be an important component in childrens emotional development. Around eighteen months, the increase in language and symbolic thought allows some feelings to be uttered through imaginative play (OHagan and Smith 2004, 27). Prior to this childrens options were limited to physical displays such as cry ing, hitting, or facial ports. This can promote childrens emotional development, as it allows them to learn to express their wants and needs, and become emotionally aware of the wants and needs of others.For example, role play can allow children to act out their fears, such as expiry to the doctor or being punished (OHagan and Smith 2004, 36). These fears might develop from an experience the child has had, such as having a painful injection at the doctors office, or a grokd fear, such as concern over anticipated punishment.Role play can also help chilren develop self-efficacy. sluice young children have a strong desire to be right or successful, and will keep off areas where they expect to fail (Macintyre 2001, 4). However, if children can try things with no fear of failure they are more believably to stretch out and tackle things they might otherwise avoid (Macintyre 2001, 4). Since there is no defined end product, there is no fear or experience of failure. Children are empow ered through the communication skills essential in role play, as they can express their feelings freely, can negotiate their wishes and needs and develop potency and self-esteem (OHagan and Smith 2004, 18)This self-efficacy can both be encouraged in actions and in emotional expression role play teaches children healthy and appropriate expressions of emotion. OHagan and Smith (2004, 38) studied groups of young children who viewed adults handling a situation, with each group seeing a different emotional response. One group viewed the adults as dealing with the disoblige by becoming angry and physically aggressive, and were later observed to emotionally deal with a similar situation in a similar manner, i.e. with anger and physical aggression. OHagan and Smith (2004, 36) contend this reinforces Banduras claim that children learn from models in their lives, particularly those they view as similar to themselves, who have a nurturing relationship with them, or who they perceive as power ful and competent (OHagan and Smith 2004, 39).Symbolic play, such as role play, should certainly form an important part of the preschool curriculum but preschool teachers should bear in mind that the quality of a childs play will be determined by general characteristics of development as well as by the play context (Umek and Musek 2001, 63). In the classroom, role play can be encouraged through the use of story and related play objects. For example, reading stories that include a kitchen and having a play kitchen available encourages children to first repeat the story through role play, then diverge and develop their own story lines. OHagan and Smith (2004, 58) present a typical classroom element, a home corner complete with dressing-up clothes and confused objects for domestic play.Role play can be used for many learning purposes, such as to reinforce desired behaviour or assess childrens understanding of material. A teacher is trying to encourage sharing amongst her pupils. In th is scenario, the teacher could role play with the children, demonstrating and reinforcing that sharing is a desireable activity. The activity could then be extended, with children being allowed to continue the play without teacher involvement, by later drawing pictures, and/or talking about the role play in a circle time or similar sharing opportunity.Finally, role play can also enhance a teachers evaluation of childrens attainments, as the children will demonstrate their abilities in a number of areas during a typical role play activity. In practice, children can achieve higher(prenominal) levels of individual cognitive functions (conservation, one-to-one correspondence, decentration) in their symbolic play than they demonstrate when the same mental trading operations are tested and measured in formal, non-play, situations (Umek and Musek 2001, 64). As such, observations and assessment based on role play can be highly valuable in the classroom environment.