The Importance Of Play In Early Childhood Education – A Practitioner Perspective

Literature Review

Describe about the practitioner perspective on the importace of play in early years setting?

In this section, the previous literature or the research papers of the previous researchers found in the area of the research topic will be analyzed to understand the important facts of the research topic. The review aims to introduce the reader’s interest on the theory and research which is about the play based education in early years. It also signifies the development that is appropriate practice and is the part of early research. The focus of this review is on re-thinking of the concept and challenges which have been and are emerging in the research topic for importance of lay among the early years of children (Edwards, 2013). The topic signifies the benefits of the early years learning through play which can provide the techniques and opportunities to value added learning to all the children in early years. Thus, it required focused thinking that ensures the children at early life engages in social and economic well-being as cultural heritage (Feldman, 2010).

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is considered to be the statutory guidelines for the early children play that lays the learning and development support for play in the school settings and on the relationship with families to set goals (Engel, 2013). EYFS is rooted on the four major principles that are based on the welfare, car, learning wellbeing and development. The principles of EYFS framework includes the positive relation, motivation for play, unique child and learning and development (Fleer, 2010). These principles are interrelated with each other and provide the guidelines for facilitating the environment for children’s learning. This applies to the early childhood settings referring to the children experiences and care for development and learning at their early stage (Wilson, 2015). The fundamentals of this framework is displayed as the view that the life of the being, belonging and becoming are all connected with the background of community, family, culture, and place (Fiedler and Kuester, 2010). The learning and development takes place through the initiation of the above relationships and through most influential practitioners (Daniel, Wassell and Gilligan, 2010). Children in the everyday life participate and develop their own understanding and interest in the learning aspects but the relationships identifies for them what is right learning for the early stage. Children are highly motivated when it comes to play but the adults find it challenging (Baker, 2014). In all the aspects of leaning and development in a child play is important but when it comes to playing children play keeps growing in complexity and this becomes socially and cognitively demanding.

At present, there are some government legislations and rules which have a major impact on the early year’s education of the children. The extent of the research is associated with the differences in the practice and ideology of early year’s practitioners in relation to play (Maughan and Little, 2010). There is a need to recognize the importance of play in the education curriculum for the young and early stage children. Play has been featured in the thinking of the educators, philosophers for many years (Bird and Edwards, 2014). The new thinking that has emerged in present in the role of play in nurseries, play groups and primary school teachings is the education methods, less theoretical perspectives and practical outcomes as well as close observations and recording of the children play in the videos, gives the early years pedagogy with the positive and long term outcomes for the children. The emphasis on how the practitioners develop the curriculum for the children that encompasses the interactions, routines, experiences and events that are planned and unplanned for the environment design suitable for the children’s development and learning(Edwards and Bird, 2015). These principle elements support the in-depth knowledge among the practitioners that emphasis the model of clear understanding that involves the educators to develop, clear and understand the world for children (Drake, 2009). The working of the educators drawing for professional knowledge would include the planning, for learning and development of children through engaging them in real play, activities for learning and identify their respective strengths and interest so as to choose appropriate strategies for teaching and learning design (Holman, 2015). The educators have to carefully assess learning among children in the bringing diverse experiences for the knowledge, expectations, skills and perspectives. This lays emphasis on the complex, dynamic and holistic characteristics of the children learning for the play (Maughan and Little, 2010). The aspects of learning include social, personal, physical, emotional, creative cognitive, spiritual and linguistic aspects that are interrelated with each other. Thus in early year childhood curriculum must be set in all experiences, expectations, activities, routines, planning and events that occur in the environment of the children development and learning (Schousboe and Winther-Lindqvist, 2013). The educator’s practices and professional aspects involve the nurturing and building the relationships, teaching, curriculum decision making and learning activities. According to practitioners, Play is regarded important in the aspects of learning and development of children.

Early Years Foundation Stage

This allows the personality expressions and uniqueness (Engel, 2013). Another advantage of the process is that it Enables children for making connections between the new learnings and prior experiences. It has the ability of enhancing the dispositions of creativity and curiosity to develop new creation among the children. It also the power of stimulating the sense of wellness and wellbeing (van Oers, 2012). Assisting the children for developing and focusing on building of relationships and maintaining the balance in physical, emotional, mental wellbeing and health is very important and the early year’s education helps to achieve this objective. It helps to explore the new materials and discovering their properties by using their knowledge for that material for imaginative play and expressing their emotions and inner feelings (Stephen and Edwards, 2015). Early year’s education is effective in dealing with play conflicts and learning to negotiate and sharing and solving the issues, problems and moving towards independence from support (Macintyre, 2012). It also helps in developing skills in communication and languages.

The educators have to establish the caring and decisive relationship with the families and children that enable them in working for the creating a curriculum and learning lessons that are implemented to develop the child (Jarvis, Newman and Swiniarska, 2014). The educators gradually emphasis on the principles for drawing the practices of early learning and play that are based on the perspectives discussed in the section below. The development theory has understanding and focus on the process of change of children’s development and learning with time frame where the socio-cultural theory has an emphasis on the families. This  their culture and group play in central role that lays importance for the respectful relationship for children’s learning and hence provide insight to cultural and social contexts of development and learning. The socio behavioral theories emphasize on the focus of the role and experiences in shaping the behavior of the children (Mohler et al., 2009). The critical theory has an emphasis on the early childhood educators challenges in shaping the curriculum for children and challenges to assume different curriculum for different children. The structuralize theories of the issues of the power, social and equity justice have to focus on the early settings (Moyles, 2010)

Play thus, provides the opportunity to children for learning, developing, creating imagining and improvising. Playing with other children helps to figure out ideas, social group and challenges which help to build new understanding and thinking (Wood, 2013). The play provides the supportive environment for the children where they can ask questions, can solve the problems and engage themselves in critically thinking.as play enables to create and enhance the thinking capability among the children and this enhances the desire among them to know more and learn. Thus, the play is regarded as the positive dispositioning promotion for the learning (Mukherji and Albon, 2010). The children are immensely in favor of the play at every point and this ensure their enthusiastic approach towards the early children educators’ development and learning. The children learning program must focus on the learning curriculum and involve the educators from being the purposeful, deliberated and thoughtful in the action and decisions. This is concerned with the intentional teachings that initiate the educators to plan the modeling and demonstration of learning and developing session for the children in accordance with the behavior and child’s play interest (Edwards and Bird, 2015). They are the ones who plan the opportunities for the intentional knowledge building and teaching. This creates the learning environment that has encouraged the children to explore, create, solve problem and construct their own learning from the activity. This routine of play has recognized the moments that built the learning and development among children.

Importance of Play in Educational Curriculum

In this literature review, the practitioner has developed the initiation in the context of the young children education for learning and development through play and decisive curriculum for children. Within the society the conditions of the development of play have the powerful ideas where the children learning theories for the educators and practitioners (Prettyman and Lampman, 2011). This applies to the early childhood settings referring to the children experiences and care for development and learning at their early stage. The fundamentals of this framework is displayed as the view that the life of the being, belonging and becoming are all connected with the background of community, family, culture, and place (Williams and McInnes, 2014).The working of the educators drawing for professional knowledge would include the planning, for learning and development of children through engaging them in real play, activities for learning and identify their respective strengths and interest so as to choose appropriate strategies for teaching and learning design. There have been influential gaps, strengths and weaknesses in the importance of play decisions of practitioners and families for the early child play and its importance. The practitioner’s decision making and childhood play as it is a child’s work and Play is important. This has benefited the children in gaining knowledge, learn to think critically and solve the problems by themselves. Children gain problem solving through the games and puzzles and stimulate their knowledge in critical thinking and socializing (Wood, 2013). This has strengthened their language skills and communication skills. The gaps between the practices and the professional educators for the child play have to be according to the child practice. The importance of play has been affected by the practices of the educators, the curriculum decision making, and behavior of the child and the family background of the children. All these affect the right approach for the children in developing their learning and thinking capabilities. Thus in early year childhood curriculum must be set in all experiences, expectations, activities, play routines, planning and events that occur in the environment of the children development and learning by their families (Lightfoot, Cole and Cole, 2013). The educator’s practices and professional aspects must also involve the nurturing and building the relationships, teaching, curriculum decision making and learning activities.

Hence, this research will be a base upon the all the perspective areas for the importance of play among children in their early life. The support from families, technology, educators and society as a whole would influence positively and may be negatively for the importance of play. Positive influence indicates to the role of each member in building the learning platform for the child at his early stage and benefits him from all the decisions, activities and support the development of child through play. On the other hand the negative influences include the child security, his engagement in other activities except play, and engaging them in studies and other competition (Suzanne L. Burton., 2011). The literature review above has supported the research findings and analysis for the importance of play on the practitioner’s perspective who finds that the early years are the building blocks for child’s growth. The topic signifies the benefits of the early years learning through play which can provide the techniques and opportunities to value added learning to all the children in early years. Parental involvement is a must in every child’s early years in play which is not only beneficial for the child but also for the parents to establish understanding of the child’s need, his learnings, thinking, development and moving from support towards independence (Alvestad, 2011). This enhances the parent-child playing which open the areas where they share much stronger bond, increase in communication, sharing of values, assisting in problem solving and also allows teachable moments at home. Similar is with the practitioners who perform the same guiding roles for children to communicate their development and learnings in the early years (Brock, 2009). Thus, Play time for the children helps them in their learning and development and also provides the opportunities for child parent comfort and confront and resolving the concerns related to children. The child also builds understanding of the others actions and preferences and becomes more socialize. Thus, the practitioner’s focus is on the development of the child in his early years personal and social both for overall learning and development in his future.

Educators’ Practices and Professional Aspects

References

Alvestad, M. (2011). You Can Learn Something Every Day! Children Talk About Learning in Kindergarten Traces of Learning Cultures. International Journal of Early Childhood, 43(3), pp.291-304.

Baker, F. (2014). Challenges presented to personal theories, beliefs and practices of play in Abu Dhabi kindergartens: the English Medium teacher perspective. Early Years, 35(1), pp.22-35.

Bird, J. and Edwards, S. (2014). Children learning to use technologies through play: A Digital Play Framework. Br J Educ Techno, 46(6), pp.1149-1160.

Brock, A. (2009). Perspectives on play. Harlow, England: Pearson/Longman.

Daniel, B., Wassell, S. and Gilligan, R. (2010). Child development for child care and protection workers. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Drake, J. (2009). Planning for children’s play and learning. London: Routledge.

Edwards, S. (2013). Digital play in the early years: a contextual response to the problem of integrating technologies and play-based pedagogies in the early childhood curriculum. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 21(2), pp.199-212.

Edwards, S. and Bird, J. (2015). Observing and assessing young children’s digital play in the early years: Using the Digital Play Framework. Journal of Early Childhood Research.

Engel, L. (2013). EYFS Best Practice: All about a Teaching in the EYFS. Nursery World, 2013(10).

Feldman, R. (2010). Child development. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Fiedler, A. and Kuester, I. (2010). Child development and child poverty. New York: Nova Science Publishers.

Fleer, M. (2010). Early Learning and Development. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.

Holman, K. (2015). Research in action: Outdoor play in a childminding setting. Early Years Educator, 16(12), pp.46-52.

Jarvis, P., Newman, S. and Swingier L. (2014). On a becoming social the importance of collaborative free play in childhood. International Journal of Play, 3(1), pp.53-68.

Lightfoot, C., Cole, M. and Cole, S. (2013). The development of children. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.

Macintyre, C. (2012). Enhancing learning through play. New York: David Fulton Publishers.

Maughan, B. and Little, M. (2010). Child development. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate.

Mohler, G., Yun, K., Carter, A. and Kasak, D. (2009). The Effect of Curriculum, Coaching, and Professional Development on Prekindergarten Children’s Literacy Achievement. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 30(1), pp.49-68.

Moyles, J. (2010). The excellence of play. Maidenhead England: Open University Press.

Mukherji, P. and Albon, D. (2010). Research methods in early childhood. Los Angeles: SAGE.

Prettyman, S. and Lampman, B. (2011). Learning culture through sports. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.

Schousboe, I. and Winther-Lindqvist, D. (2013). Children’s Play and Development. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

Stephen, C. and Edwards, S. (2015). Digital play and technologies in the early years. Early Years, 35(2), pp.227-227.

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Thomas, G. (2009). How to do your research project. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd.

vanOers, B. (2012). Developmental Education for Young Children. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

Williams, J. and McInnes, K. (2014). Planning and Using Time in the Foundation Stage. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.

Wilson, H. (2015). Albon, D., & Rosen, R. (2014). Negotiating Adult “Child Relationships in Early Childhood Research. The Journal of Educational Research, 108(5), pp.432-433.

Wood, E. (2013). Play, learning and the early childhood curriculum. London: SAGE.