Article 2
The second article about working with children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds that I have chosen to review is ‘Supporting Sociodramatic Play in Preschools to Promote Language and Literacy Skills of English Language Learners’ by Rashida Banerjee, Amani Alsalman, and Shehana Alqafari, in the Early Childhood Education Journal in June of 2015.
Main Topic and Ideas
The main topic and ideas in this article relate to the fact that children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are more likely to be at risk for language and communication delays. Language and communication are key elements of the early literacy skills children need to develop. The article discusses that children that participate in sociodramatic play develop a greater interesting in reading and language development, and increase their English language competency faster than
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I know that it is essential for educators to intentionally set up the sociodramatic play areas so that they foster all children’s emergent language and literacy skills in the most effective way. These skills can be facilitated by educators including reading and writing materials such as magazines, books, paper, and pens in the area (Fellowes and Oakley, 2011). The use of reading and writing materials during sociodramatic play encourages children to develop their understanding of the functions of literacy and language (Banerjee, Alsalman, Alqafari, 2015). Fellowes and Oakley (2011) also suggest the use of real texts such as books and signs in the sociodramatic play area, but only if the texts are relevant to the children’s
Leong was featured in the May 2003 issue of the NAEYC’s Young Children. The article explores the conflict between children's play and meeting academic standards; more frequently, teachers are forced to limit playtime in order to teach essential skills to students; however because of limited imaginary play, increased academic demands of young children, and more realistic toys, children are almost unable to imagine. Although play has been proven to benefit children’s cognitive and social development, administrators do not consider it to be an important aspect of young children’s education. Because of this, preschool and kindergarten teachers are put in a challenging predicament; in order to compensate for children’s lack of play, teachers would need to prioritize play development at the level in which they prioritize phonics awareness and fine motor skills development. Although it is difficult to do, it is not impossible to incorporate play into the curriculum. Teachers can facilitate mature play by providing multi purpose props, encouraging children to create their own props, and allowing time for children to plan their roles and scenarios for dramatic play. In addition to play helping children develop foundational skills and concepts necessary to master math and reading, it has been shown to increase classroom cooperation, the effectiveness of instructional time, and the number of friendships developed in the
The second section will evaluate the importance of play on different aspects of social development and in various stages of an individual. The third section will analyze how viewpoints on function of play on development are shaped by historical and contextual factors such as culture and economy. Developmental psychologists use various research methods such as naturalistic observations, interviews, experimental research and examining the natural context of children’s everyday interaction within the family to study the role of play in children’s development. They apply different approaches to study different types of play. Play by nature, creates a natural learning environment for the child.
This detailed text provides an understanding of reading and writing through detailed case studies, reflective questioning and further reading; in addition to links with the Early Years Curriculum (EYFS)(DCSF, 2008) provide informative information accessible to both practitioner and parent. As pointed out by the authors, literacy relates to fifty % of the early learning goals, therefore highlights the importance by the practitioner to make the acquisition of literacy exciting and meaningful through a multitude of role play scenarios, stories, rhymes and oral language, thus providing opportunities for the child to put life experiences of literacy into context, while scaffolding existing knowledge.
Heuristic play is about playing with real-life, everyday objects and providing kids with an opportunity for open-ended discovery and experience of different textures and sounds. When children are involved in heuristic play, they are using familiar objects in different ways. It is the process of exploring the different ways to use the objects that is important in the play. The phrase ‘heuristic play’ was a term coined by child psychologist, Elinor Goldschmeid in the 1980’s to describe the activity of babies and children as they play with and explore the properties of objects from the real world. It is through handling and exploring these objects that babies and toddlers begin to make their own choices and decisions and start to gain an understanding
Play is such an important part of the learning and growing, especially for children. Children engage in many different types of play, but the play I saw the most when I observe the children of my daycare is sociodramatic play. The book Understanding Dramatic Play by Judith Kase-Polisini defines sociodramatic play as “both players must tacitly or openly agree to act out the same drama” (Kase-Polisini 40). This shows that children play with each other and make their worlds together as equal creators. Children also work together without argument.
In doing so I had chosen two activities based on the learning domain literacy, the first resource exposes the child to blocks and the second was an alphabetic sensory table, both of theses resources provided the basic understanding of how literacy can develop from play based learning. Blocks can be placed in any part of the early childhood setting either indoors or outdoor play spaces, however the sensory table can be used in any indoor play space area. As educators we all know that the first few years of any child’s life is essential to their learning, development and growth, and with theses activities we can give new meaning to the interactions young children have towards language, communication and their
Storybook reading, sound activities and letter games can help to enhance children’s early literacy development in a meaningful and enjoyable manner. For example, teachers can conduct phonological awareness activities such rhyming games, alliteration and sound matching to increase children’s awareness of the sounds of language (Roskos et. al., 2003). Furthermore, ensuring that there is a library corner stocked with good books can encourage children to try to read, hence promoting reading (Roskos et. al., 2003). There are many strategies that teachers can practice to promote early literacy skills such as recognition and awareness of sounds and letters. Teachers can link these strategies with play so as to create more language-rich environments where children can practice and demonstrate language skills (Riley-Ayers,
On May 9th, 2014, I had the honor of seeing Shrek the Musical, beautifully performed at Casa Del Prado Theatre, in Balboa Park. It was such a compelling performance that it felt as if the hit movie Shrek was coming to life through the acting, directing, lighting, costumes, and makeup/hair.
Isenberg, J. P., & Jalongo, M. R. (2010, July 20). Why Is Play Important? Cognitive Development, Language Development, Literacy Development | Education.com. Retrieved March 3, 2014, from http://www.education.com/reference/article/importantance-play-cognitive-language/
As a teacher, you need to encourage all attempts at reading, writing, speaking, and allowing children to experience the different functions and use of literacy activity (The Access Center, n.d.). Moreover, it is crucial for educators to understand phonological awareness and phonics; know what constitutes good children’s literature and how to use it; know children who need additional assistance with beginning reading and writing (Cunningham et al, 2004 as cited in McLachlan et al, 2013, p. 112). Educators also need to plan effective activities to assist children experience reading aloud, listening to other children read aloud, listening to tape recordings, and videotapes so children have opportunities to integrate and extend their literacy knowledge (The Access Center, n.d.). Morrow (1990 as cited in The Access Center, n.d.) notes that classroom with greater teacher facilitation promote literacy behaviours, so it is educators’ role to provide literacy rich
My artifact of play is the video game “Call of Duty”, this is a first person shooter game that takes places during different wartime periods. I would like to focus on why Call of Duty games do not have a setting for color blind people. COD is a game that a lot of people enjoy but if you are color blind it might be hard for you to enjoy the game for example; some times in the campaign mode you might have to do a certain task that involves picking up something that has a certain color. If you are color blind it would be hard for you to complete the task and move on in the campaign to the next mission because you cannot complete the task. COD developers should use Battlefield 4 as an example because BF4 has a color blind setting for color blind
Socio-dramatic play benefits children by developing social and oral interaction with peers, and extending their vocabulary with topic related language. Educators can set up socio-dramatic play areas so that they contribute to developing the children’s emergent literacy skills. Fellowes and Oakley state that educators can facilitate emergent literacy learning in a socio-dramatic play area by including writing materials that can be easily included in play, for example, note pads and clipboards. Another way to facilitate emergent literacy is to include real texts such as signs in the play area, but these texts must be relevant to the experiences of the children (2011). An example of a socio-dramatic play area that helps develop emergent literacy skills is a restaurant or café. To allow the children to have opportunities to develop their emergent literacy knowledge while playing in this socio-dramatic play centre, the educator could add these literacy related
According to Vygotsky’s theory, through play children learn new things and it facilitates cognitive development (Fox, 2008). Students would be able to enhance language development, creativity, imagination and thinking skills through this learning experience. They are provided play materials and props related to the story for dramatic play. Piaget and Vygotsky link play with cognitive development of
As a child enters a classroom they should be surrounded by literacy in every learning center around the room. “A learning center is a defined space where materials are organized in such a way that children learn without the teacher's constant presence and direction.” (Cited Landry, et al., 2014, pg. 12) These areas consist of blocks, dramatic play, music, toys and games, discovery, sand and water, art, easel, writing, library computer and listening. Each center needs to be set up to ensure supervision is assessable from all areas of the room as well as provide child friendly hands-on activities that generate individual creativity, observations and real life experiences. “Children should also receive multiple opportunities to experience specific linguistic concepts in diverse contexts and experiences organized to foster repetition as an integral part of the classroom routine.” (Cited Justice, 2004, pg. 42)
Through children’s childhood language play is considered to be the most important period in the development of children’s grammar, creative linguistic and communicative competence. Creativity is not