The Role of Teachers in Children’s Play

Literature reviews agree that active, intentional and planned teacher involvement is crucial in helping children acquire learning skills, conceptual understanding and content knowledge through play, where teacher guidance and direction during play allows to:

• improve the quantity and quality of play towards more mature forms of play
• increase children’s motivation to engage in play
• improve children’s social, emotional, cognitive and language skills
• enhance children’s engagement in literacy, with improvements in areas such as phonological awareness
• encourage children’s abstract thinking and the development of scientific concepts

Some studies warn that involvement is more managerial than enhancing play and hinders learning through play. It is vital that the teacher’s involvement in play is carefully considered and tactful, appropriate, authentic and sensitive. The teacher’s intervention must take into account the child’s development, level of play and programme objectives, and must be appropriate to the child’s intentions, interests and learning patterns.

Become a Early Childhood Care Educator! Get your diploma soon!

Different types of play will benefit from different types of teacher interaction and the intervention will also differ depending on your goals for the child. For example, if the aim is to promote social-emotional skills through play, a more passive teaching role is appropriate, whereas using play to support a wider range of learning outcomes would involve a more active teaching role. Your practice will be complex and dynamic, constantly adapting to changing contexts and the children you teach.

Potential roles include:

• Facilitator: Prepare, organise, stage provocations, plan time and share ideas for play; remind children of their roles and actions or help them find ways to participate, for example by suggesting a role.
• Observer: Be a grateful audience, stay close to the room and show approval.
• Supporter or helper: Helps children solve problems and respond to children’s requests.
• Commentator or advisor: Makes random comments or makes suggestions for extending play.
• Challenger: Suggests different types of challenges to develop play behavior.
• Mediator: Resolves conflicts by suggesting new material or suggesting alternative plans and roles and supporting flexibility, thinking and problem-solving skills.
• Co-creator, player or participant: Participates in child-initiated play (in supporting, passive roles so that children maintain direction of the play).
• Play Stimulation: Enhances play (and its learning foundations) through explicit guidance, direction, and teaching.
• Play Facilitator: Takes on a more active role or responsibility in play with the purpose of intentionally influencing and extending children’s play.

Become a Early Childhood Care Educator! Get your diploma soon!

Principles for teacher involvement in play

• Be clear about the potential impact of play-based pedagogies on your child

Think about what is important to learning and what skills and learning abilities you want to foster or elicit through play, because knowing what you are trying to achieve. Accomplishing through play-based pedagogies will guide your engagement strategies.

• Prepare and resource the environment for play

Children’s play is structured by the space, materials and time provided for children. Provide extended, flexible periods to allow children to develop and engage in play and inquiry, and create stimulating provocations that promote active, multi-sensory, meaningful exploration, discovery and inquiry. Effective organisation will help children learn about the resources, routines and rules of play in the environment/classroom, and may include routines for planning and reviewing play and where to store play elements for later use.

• Recognise and draw on children’s cultural capital of knowledge and skills.

Recognise children’s expertise, experiences and interests beyond the early years and build play activities around these everyday experiences, needs and interests.

• Develop a safe and supportive emotional climate

Having a trusted teacher who acts as a safe anchor for preschoolers will help them gain confidence and engage more in play with their peers. Support younger children by following their play closely to support their participation and provide inspiration.

This principle of supporting play is especially important for teachers working with infants and toddlers. Support infant and toddler play by following the infant’s gaze to develop joint attention, copying the infant’s play, and eliciting responses and cooperation from the infant in interactions where you read and synchronize responses and cues from others.

• Be careful about how you choose to intervene in play

Inadvertent interference in play can hinder a child’s ability to think creatively. Therefore, it is important to observe play and adjust your response to the level of help and support your child needs. Support can be provided from outside the play (for example, by encouraging children to reflect on their play) or from within the play (for example, by taking on a role and communicating ideas for extending the play). See your role as a reflective agent in the construction of children’s learning and understanding, and begin to intervene from children’s schedules, thoughts, and intentions to sustain meaningful play.

• Be clear about the potential impact of play pedagogies for your children

Reflect on what learning is important and what learning competencies and capabilities you want to nurture or elicit through play, as knowing what you are trying to achieve through play pedagogies will guide your strategies for involvement.

• Prepare and resource environments to structure play

Children’s play is structured by the space, materials and time provided to them. Provide extended and flexible blocks of time to enable children to develop and get engrossed in their play and investigations, and create challenging provocations that promote active, multi-sensory and meaningful exploration, investigation and inquiry. Effective organisation will support children to get to know the resources, routines and rules of play in the setting/classroom, and might include routines for planning and reviewing play as well as places to store play elements for later use.

• Recognise and draw on children’s cultural funds of knowledge and competencies

Recognise children’s expertise, experience and interests from outside the early childhood setting and base play-based activities in children’s these everyday experiences, needs and interests.

• Develop a safe and supportive emotional climate

Having a trusted teacher acting as a secure base for children is associated with preschool children’s greater confidence and participation in play with peers. Support younger children by staying close to children’s play to support engagement and provide inspiration.

This principle for supporting play is especially important for teachers working with infants and toddlers. Support infants and toddlers’ play by following infants’ gaze to develop shared attention, copy infants’ play, and draw responses and collaboration from infants in interactions in which you read and synchronise each other’s responses and cues.

• Take care over your choice of intervention in play

Unintended interference in play may hinder children’s creative thinking, so it is important to observe play and match your response to the level of help and support children need. Support can be offered from outside the play (for example, prompting children’s reflection about their play) or inside the play (for example, taking a role and communicating ideas to extend play). Think of your role as being a reflective agent for the child’s own construction of learning and understanding, and start your interventions from children’s agendas, thinking and intentions to sustain meaningful play.

• Support children’s autonomy

It is important to give children the opportunity to direct their own play and to minimize your own role in developing social and emotional skills. Trust children that they are capable and creative in finding and creating interests and activities, and give them attention, encouragement and praise without altering their play or being overly directive in their play.

• Scaffold learning

For effective learning, teaching must be flexible and dynamic, strategically extending play and enhancing learning in trusting relationships and close interactions. Focus on establishing shared attention and sustained interaction. Provide support that allows children to access existing concepts using subtle strategies such as initiating activities, giving hints, asking questions, discreetly prompting or commenting, indirect modeling, and providing feedback.

• Observe play

Observation involves a deliberate reflective process in which you listen and respond to children’s play, to facilitate play-based learning and link play to concepts and academic learning to extend children’s learning both in the moment and in longer-term planning. Talk to children about their play and thinking, as their thinking about phenomena and events can be used to provide content for later exploration.

• Intentionally plan to extend children’s self-directed play and interests

Take a thoughtful, intentional, planned, and focused approach to supporting play-based learning to promote the acquisition of specific skills and the acquisition of relevant knowledge. In child-led play, you can be both child-centered and goal-directed, playing alongside children to observe, facilitate, and extend play in the moment.

However, it is important to plan specific play activities to monitor learning and achieve program goals. Consider moving beyond a focus on children’s interests to address issues of diversity and equity, and promoting more equitable experiences for children, as well as introducing children to content and disciplinary knowledge that is considered meaningful or important in relation to your priority learning areas.

• Teach and support play skills

Younger children and children from diverse families or with additional educational needs may need more support to have quality play. Teach play skills by ensuring children understand activities and how to use equipment, helping children plan their play, and focusing interventions on supporting the features of higher level, richer, more imaginative play.

• Co-construct understanding and knowledge and play with children

Co-constructive play involves integrating children’s ideas into activities and projects, while co-construction of knowledge involves creating meaningful learning opportunities to help children understand and make connections between their observations, ideas, and judgments. Continuous shared thinking, in which teachers and students engage in ongoing dialogue to discuss their thinking about phenomena, is widely recognized as an effective teaching strategy.

Become a Early Childhood Care Educator! Get your diploma soon!