Socio-Dramatic Play Essay

As mentioned in Piaget’s theory who also stressed the importance of play in developing representational skills, children engage in play, they use their memories to help connect their play to pre-literacy skills such as naming and symbolic thought (Roskos & Christie 2004). Socio-dramatic play promotes speaking and listening skills and in dramatising, children read or hear, which supports reading skills development. (Miller 1998) Vygotsky regarded it as an important play that supports the development of higher mental functions in children. Young children assumes about the knowledge of the written language, which they constantly use in their play and the imaginary worlds. Besides socio-dramatic play, Christie and Johnson (1983) showed that free-play

Factors contributing to children’s literacy development through play includes teacher’s role in terms of interactions and provision of literacy-rich environment with materials and prints. It has also showed a great emphasis on socio-dramatic play, symbolic play and pretend play in relation to literacy development through play. In comparison, lesser amount of research has been done in the area of other types of play within the classroom settings, in particularly, the learning centres. It was also mentioned that play centres offer rich opportunities for oral language development (Rybczynski and Troy, 1995). Patton and Mercer (1996) suggested that child-initiated learning centres promote learning through play as it motivates them to engage in active learning experiences. Active learning in learning centres and play promotes literacy skills in children by allowing them to apply their prior knowledge. Neuman and Roskos (1990) suggested that literacy-enriched play centres can make a difference in children’s literacy behaviors through play. Berg (1994) stated that literacy activities are best developed when materials are being objectively placed with a specific theme with each activity centre in the room. In a study conducted, it was concluded

This could be done through having anecdotal record and analysing into qualitative data. Secondly, I would like to conduct interviews with a small group of teachers to gain an in-depth understanding of types of attitudes and strategies that teachers hold about play and literacy development with their 4 year-olds, and analysing the responses into qualitative data. Lastly, I would also like to conduct a survey through questionnaires, with the group of teachers in the Centre to find out in general about teacher’s beliefs and practices of the integration of play and literacy into their classroom’s daily event.

Therefore, the research of this study is: ‘How can teachers support literacy development of 4 year-olds through play within the classroom setting?’ and aims to investigate how play helps to develop literacy skills of young children and how teachers can support literacy development of young children through