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Transcript of Great Balancing Act
To appear in E. Zigler, S. Barnett, & W. Gilliam (Eds.) The preschool education debates.
The Great Balancing Act: Optimizing Core Curricula through Playful Pedagogy
Kathy Hirsh-PasekTemple University
Roberta Michnick GolinkoffUniversity of Delaware
December 4, 2009
This research was supported by Temple University’s Center for Re-Imagining Children’s Learning and Education that the authors co-direct, by NICHD grant 5R01HD050199;
NSF grant BCS-0642529; Spatial Intelligence Learning Center NSF SBE-0541957; NIH grant 1RC1HD0634970-01. Thanks to Kelly Fisher for reading earlier drafts of this paper
and for suggesting ways to make the piece stronger and Aimee Stahl for help with the bibliography.
The Great Balancing Act: Optimizing Core Curricula through Playful Pedagogy
The Capulets and Montagues of early childhood have long battled over their
vision for a perfect preschool education. Should young children be immersed in a core
curriculum replete with numbers and letters or in a playful context that stimulates
creative discovery? Cast as a feud, many have come to believe that the two approaches
are incompatible. It is, however, time for family allegiances to give way to empirical
findings. Playful learning offers one way to reframe the debate by nesting a rich core
curriculum within a playful pedagogy. The data are clear. Young children thrive in
settings with a strong curricular base that expose them to foundational skills that will be
learned in school. Research also suggests that they learn best through the kinds of
meaningful engagement and exploration found in play. Curricular goals need not
constrain pedagogical practices; children can learn and learn well in playful classrooms.
The Case for a Core Curriculum
There is no question that academic advancement is cumulative. The roots of
children’s competencies begin in infancy and early childhood. By way of example,
toddlers’ oral language skills not only predict how well they will communicate in school,
but also how well they will learn their A, B, Cs and understand written texts (NICHD,
Early Child Care Research Network, 2005; Scarborough, 2001; Storch & Whitehurst,
2001; NELP Report, 2009; Dickinson & Freiberg, in press). Learning to count and to
master concepts related to numbers (big and small) are also critical to later mathematical
understanding and to flexible problem solving (Baroody & Dowker, 2003). Finally, a
bounty of research findings now link early social competencies to later academic
achievement (Raver, 2002). Training in emotion regulation that helps children control
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their behavior and plan effectively is related to both academic outcomes and social gains
(Diamond, Barnett, Thomas, & Munro, 2007). These facts alone compel us to design
curricula for preschoolers that expose children to language, literacy, early number and
social skills.
The last three decades produced a wealth of empirical data that tell the same
story. Importantly, many of these studies have evaluated the short- and long-term effects
of preschool on disadvantaged children (Campbell, Pungello, Miller-Johnson, Burchinal,
& Ramey, 2001; Campbell, Ramey, Pungello, Sparling, & Miller-Johnson, 2002;
Campbell & Ramey, 1995; Schweinhart, 2004; Weikart, 1998; Reynolds, Ou, &
Topitzes, 2004; Zigler & Bishop-Josef, 2006). More recently, a large survey of 6
longitudinal data sets from Britain and the US examined precursors for school readiness.
Using meta-analyses, across literally thousands of children, they concluded that
mathematics, emergent literacy scores, and attentional skills were the best predictors of
later academic success. These results held for children from low and high socio-economic
niches and equally for boys and girls (Duncan et al., 2007). Thus, we not only know that
early education matters, but we are zeroing in on exactly the kinds of curricular goals that
will align preschool education with later primary school subjects.
Though we have made enormous progress in understanding precursors to several
academic outcomes in school (reading and math), warring factions still dominate the
question of how we should teach these and other competencies to our youngest citizens.
Worried about the discontinuity between preschool and elementary school pedagogy,
many early education curricula are taught using what Bowman (1999) referred to as
“traditional practices, which emphasize basic skills and whole-class, direct instruction,
3
even in preschool.” An Alliance for Childhood Report, Crisis in Kindergarten, released
in April of 2009, found that as these direct instruction methods gain traction, playtime is
being all but eliminated. Observing two hundred kindergarten classrooms in New York
and Los Angles, they find that 25% of the teachers in Los Angeles reported having no
time for play in their classrooms. What was replacing this activity? Test preparation! In
New York and Los Angeles, a whopping 80% of the teachers spend time each day in test
preparation. These findings are consistent with Elkind’s (2008) claim that children have
lost up to 8 hours a day of free play time over the last two decades and that 30,000
schools in the US have given up recess time to ensure that children have more time for
academic study. This reduction in playtime is a barometer for a much deeper debate in
our society about the value of play in children’s lives.
In this essay, we argue that the optimal preschool environment contains rich
content delivered in a playful, whole-child approach to learning. Using the best
available data as our foundation, we introduce the idea of guided play and suggest that
young children learn language, reading and mathematics as well or better when they have
a combination of free and purposeful play than they do when they are trained with
methods of direct instruction. Our argument is based on a set of well established learning
principles (Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, Berk, & Singer, 2009) that illustrate how children
master academic and social competencies through play. Finally, we use these principles
to describe how looking at learning through play offers us a broader perspective on the
skill sets that young children must develop to be successful in school and in the global
world beyond the school walls. In short, the debate must no longer be about learning
versus play. Rather, we must think about curricula that stress learning via play. A whole-
4
child perspective enhances children’s social, academic, and creative development, allows
for accountability and can easily align with preK-3rd grade education (Bogard &
Takanishi, 2005).
Empty Vessels or Child Explorers and Discoverers?
The direct instruction approach to preschool curricula builds on a well-worn
metaphor of child development viewing children as empty pails to be filled with
information. Teachers become environmental agents, charged with “pouring in” facts as
children passively absorb information. In this view, children learn best via explicit
pedagogy. The notion of school readiness is often limited to cognitive learning (Stecher,
2002) and developmental dimensions like physical and motor growth, social skills, or the
range of skills and habits that enable children to learn in the classroom (such as the ability
to sustain attention) are often not addressed (Kagan, Moore, & Bredekamp, 1995; Kagan
& Lowenstein, 2004). Derived from a more behaviorist approach to learning, the empty
vessel metaphor often uses worksheets and memorization of facts and drill. Increasingly,
this kind of approach is being adopted to teach children emergent literacy skills like
letter-sound correspondence and vocabulary acquisition along with mathematical
competencies in counting (Miller & Almon, 2009). Undoubtedly, children can and do
learn in multiple ways, from both direct instruction and playful, guided learning (Datta,
McHalle, & Mitchell, 1976). However, research suggests that direct instruction often
leaves children feeling stressed and not liking school (e.g., Stipek, Feiler, Byler, Ryan,
Milburn, and Salmon, 1998).
The whole-child perspective is exemplified by a philosophical approach assuming
that the child brings much to the learning environment. Here teachers are guides.
5
Learning is not compartmentalized into separate domains and as all learning is
inextricably intertwined (Froebel, 1897; Piaget, 1970, among others). As Zigler (2007)
wrote,
The brain is an integrated instrument. To most people the brain means
intelligence. But the brain mediates emotional and social development. Emotions
and cognition are constantly interwoven in the lives of children (p. 10).
This view suggests that the whole child integrates cognitive and emotional
information in meaningful ways with the help of a rich environment and supportive
adults (Vygotsky, 1934/1986). This view presupposes that children seek meaning in all
they do and that through play they not only practice and hone their social skills but
engage in cognitive acts that expand their repertoires (Piaget, 1970). Play is a prominent
and integrative experience for young children in which they use both social and academic
skills. Thus, scientists like Roskos and Christie (2002, 2004), Zigler, Singer, and Bishop-
Josef (2004), and Singer, Golinkoff, and Hirsh-Pasek (2006) make compelling arguments
for the central role of play as a medium for promoting school readiness in a whole, active
child. In her review of the Abecedarian program (e.g., Campbell et al., 2001), the
High/Scope Perry Preschool Project (Schweinhart, 2004; Weikart, 1998) and the Chicago
Child-Parent Center Project (Reynolds et al., 2004), Galinsky (2006) noted that each of
these successful programs viewed children as active experiential learners using a
pedagogical approach that is aligned with playful learning.
What is Playful Learning?
Playful learning is a whole-child approach to education that includes both free
play and guided play – each of which is related to growth in academic and social
6
outcomes. Researchers generally agree that free play, whether with objects, fantasy and
make believe, or physical, is 1) pleasurable and enjoyable, 2) has no extrinsic goals, 3) is
spontaneous, 4) involves active engagement, 5) is generally all-engrossing, 6) often has a
private reality, 7) is non-literal, and 8) can contain a certain element of make-believe
(Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2009; Garvey, 1977; Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 2003; Christie &
Johnsen, 1983). The merits of free play in early education have been well documented
(e.g., see Singer et al., 2006).
Guided play is distinct from free play. Here educators structure an environment
around a general curricular goal that is designed to stimulate children’s natural curiosity,
exploration, and play with learning-oriented objects/materials (Fein & Rivkin, 1986;
Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2009; Marcon, 2002; Resnick, 1999; Schweinhart, 2004). Guided play
offers educational scaffolding in which adults enrich the environment in two ways. First,
they populate the child’s world with objects and toys that promote a variety of
developmentally appropriate learning experiences (Berger, 2008). A room filled with
books encourages children to explore print and a room with balance beams encourages
children to experiment (Siegler, 1996). Second, in guided play, teachers may enhance
children’s self discovery by commenting or asking open-ended questions about what
children are finding, thereby encouraging children to think beyond their own self-initiated
exploration. While guided play may appear to defy the play criterion of no external goal,
children continue to be the active drivers of learning. Learning is child-directed and not
adult controlled. Guided play is not direct instruction dressed in playful clothes.
Fisher (2009) identified two orthogonal continua that define guided play. The first
varies according to who initiates the learning: either the teacher or the child. In free play,
7
for example, the child determines what to explore. In direct instruction, the teacher
controls the agenda. The second dimension is loosely defined through the structure of the
learning experience. Free play is unstructured while direct instruction is a structured
learning experience. Under guided play, a teacher can have well formed curricular goals
but present them in ways that stimulate children’s discovery and engagement. This
mixture of goal-oriented experiences with whole-child learning offers a new alternative--
guided play -- that meshes core curricula and playful pedagogy.
Having described the model in the abstract, it is worth seeing how it might be
adopted in practice. A teacher may embed a variety of shapes in the free play area to
promote the exploration and learning of shapes in preschool. After initial free play
activities, the teacher asks children to play “Dora the Explorer” and find shapes. The
teacher may enrich conceptual understanding by asking children to compare their shapes
in a ‘show and tell’ activity.
To date, a number of studies have examined playful learning. The studies have
been observational, correlational, and have included strict random assignment
experimental settings. Furthermore, the research spans areas as diverse as cognitive and
academic learning and social development. The results are uniformly positive:
Children’s learning through free play and guided play is as good as, if not better, than
their learning under direct instructional methods. A review of the literature makes this
point (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2009).
Free Play and Academic Outcomes
Through playful investigations, children develop rudimentary mathematic and
science concepts (Sarama & Clements, 2009a, 2009b; Tamis-LeMonda, Uzgiris, &
8
Bornstein, 2002). In one observational study, Ginsburg, Pappas, and Seo (2001) found
preschool children spend over half of their playtime in some form of mathematic or
science-related activity: 25% was spent examining pattern and shape, 13% on magnitude
comparisons, 12% focused on enumeration, 6% explored dynamic change, 5% compared
spatial relations (e.g., height, width, location), and 2% of the time was spent classifying
objects. Similar findings were evident in Siegler’s (1996) observation that those children
who played with a balance beam became experimenters who discovered the rules of
weight and balance.
Free play activities thus provide opportunities to explore, practice, and refine
early math and science skills. Children who engage in these activities with high
frequencies also show stronger academic gains (e.g. Ginsburg, Lee, & Boyd, 2008;
Wolfgang, Stannard, & Jones, 2003). Those participating in manipulative activities (e.g.,
block play, model building, carpentry) or playing with art materials do better in spatial
visualization, visual-motor coordination, and creative use of visual materials (e.g.,
Caldera, McDonald Culp, Truglio, Alvarez, & Huston, 1999; Hirsch, 1996; Wolfgang et
al., 2003).
A growing body of evidence suggests that free play also relates to the
development of language and literacy. Symbolic play, in particular, consists mostly of
enacted narratives that share vital aspects that underlie literacy, such as the identification
of characters, creation of a coherent story line, and the use of props and contextual
descriptions to foster a story-related reality (Dickinson, Cote, & Smith, 1993;
Nicolopoulou, McDowell, & Brockmeyer, 2006; Pellegrini & Galda, 1990). This kind of
play predicts language and reading readiness in kindergarten (Dickinson & Moreton,
9
1991; Dickinson & Tabors, 2001; Bergen & Mauer, 2000; Pellegrini & Galda, 1990).
Additional experimental research is necessary to isolate the specific elements of symbolic
play that promote different aspects of literacy development.
Guided Play and Academic Outcomes
A wealth of empirical data also shows that teachers can enrich learning through
children’s play by adding math- and literacy-related materials into school environments
(e.g., Christie & Enz, 1992; Christie & Roskos, 2006; Arnold, Fisher, Doctoroff, &
Dobbs, 2002; Griffin & Case, 1996; Griffin, Case, & Siegler, 1994; Einarsdottir, 2005;
Kavanaugh & Engel, 1998; Roskos & Christie, 2004; Saracho & Spodek, 2006; Stone &
Christie, 1996; Whyte & Bull, 2008). For example, Cook (2000) found preschool
children engaged in more talk and activities relating to mathematical concepts when
number symbols were embedded within play settings. Neuman and Roskos (1992) also
note that the incorporation of literacy props in preschoolers’ free play environments
increased literacy-related activities compared to a control group. Taken together, these
findings demonstrate how simple interventions that augment the academic content in free
play environments stimulates academic outcomes.
In the examples above, guided play takes the form of supplementing environments
that encourage children’s discovery. Teachers can also subtly structure play activities
(Singer, 2002) as they co-play with children, guiding them towards imaginary activities
and games that match with curricular goals (e.g., going on shopping trip and doing math).
Parent/teacher training programs designed to enhance learning-oriented co-play, for
example, enhance children’s imaginative play, pro-social skills, task persistence, positive
emotions, and academic skills (Singer, Singer, Plaskon, & Schweder, 2003). Thus,
10
guided play sparks enriched, meaningful learning experiences while still maintaining
children’s sense of curiosity, autonomy, choice, and challenge. Taken together, the
literature suggests that playful learning, in the form of both free play and guided play
leads to strong academic and social outcomes for children.
Long-Term Effects of Playful Pedagogies
The real measure of learning comes not only from immediate mastery of
information but also from long term retention and transfer. Here too, the evidence
suggests that playful learning is an important pedagogical tool. Marcon (1993; 1999;
2002), for example, compared three preschool models on a variety of academic,
behavioral, and social measures. Children in the child-initiated learning environments
showed superior social behaviors, fewer conduct disorders, enhanced academic
performance, and retention beyond children who experienced didactic, direct instruction
or mixed methods in sixth grade (didactic instruction and play-learning). Other
researchers have documented similar gains in social and academic development of child-
initiated learners over didactic learners (Burts, Hart, Charlesworth, & DeWolf, 1993;
Lillard & Else-Quest, 2006).
Research on social outcomes of playful learning comes from the now classic High
Scope project (Schweinhart & Weikart, 1997; Schweinhart, Weikart, & Larner, 1986).
By age 23, children who had attended play-based preschools were eight times less likely
to need treatment for emotional disturbances and three times less likely to be arrested for
committing a felony than those who went to preschools where direct instruction
prevailed. To paraphrase Schweinhart, High Scope’s director, direct instruction does not
cause these problems. Rather, not giving children the opportunity to develop socially is
11
the unintended side effect (Washington Post, November 21, 2009). In other words, social
problems arise when we fail to recognize that early education should be about the whole
child.
Why Does Playful Learning Work? Seven Developmental Principles
In 2009, Hirsh-Pasek et al. articulated 7 developmental principles that summarize
accumulated knowledge about how young children best learn. These same principles
appear in a series of now classic books (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000; Bowman, Donovan,
& Burns, 2001; Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 2000; Berk, 2001; Zigler et al., 2004;
Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 2003; Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2009), among others, and largely
reflect the developmentally appropriate practices espoused by the National Association
for the Education of Young Children (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009). Perhaps it is not
surprising that pedagogies consistent with these principles endorse a whole-child
approach and embrace playful learning rather than direct instruction:
1. All polices, programs, and products directed toward young children should be
sensitive to children’s developmental age and ability as defined through
research-based developmental trajectories. Developmental trajectories and
milestones are better construed through ranges and patterns of growth rather
than absolute ages.
2. Children are active, not passive, learners who acquire knowledge by
examining and exploring their environment
3. Children, as all humans, are fundamentally social beings who learn most
effectively in socially sensitive and responsive environments via their
interactions with caring adults and other children
12
4. Children learn best when their social and emotional needs are met and when
they learn life skills necessary for success. Self-regulation, flexibility and
compromise, and the ability to take the perspective of the other, are skills to
be nurtured.
5. Young children learn most effectively when information is embedded in
meaningful contexts that relate to their everyday lives rather than in artificial
contexts that foster rote learning.
6. The process of learning is as important as the outcome. Facilitating children’s
language, attentional skills, problem solving, flexible thinking, and self-
regulation is crucial to children’s academic success and to accountability.
Settings that promote these skills prepare confident, eager, engaged, and
lifelong learners.
7. Recognizing that children have diverse skills and needs as well as different
cultural and socio-economical backgrounds encourages respect for individual
differences and allows children to optimize their learning.
There is virtual consensus surrounding these principles of learning for children in
pre-K to 3rd grade (Bogard & Takanishi, 2005). Playful learning is one of the strong
characteristics of both the successful Tools of the Mind Curriculum (Diamond et al.,
2007) and of Montessori programs (Lillard & Else-Quest, 2006). Playful learning also
encourages sensitivity and responsiveness in teachers -- characteristics that are hallmarks
of high quality programs (e.g., Galinsky, 2006). These 7 principles, based in
developmental and learning science, suggest that playful learning – not direct instruction
13
– will maximize children’s ability to learn and to transfer what they have learned as they
consider learning in a whole child.
Reaping the Benefits of Playful Learning
We have suggested that Pre-K to 3rd grade education would be best served by a
peace treaty between the educational Montagues and Capulets. Broad curricular goals
can be achieved using playful pedagogy and the scientific evidence is consistent with this
recommendation. Indeed, Copple and Bredekamp (2009) give us guidance on how we
might achieve this end. They write:
Education quality and outcomes would improve substantially if elementary
teachers incorporated the best of preschool’s emphases and practices (e.g.,
attention to the whole child; integrated, meaningful learning; parent engagement)
and if preschool teachers made more use of those elementary-grade practices that
are valuable for younger children, as well (e.g., robust content, attention to
learning progressions in curriculum and teaching) (p. 2).
Herein lies a partial recipe for achieving the great balancing act. Playful pedagogy offers
a model for how we can better prepare students to be lifelong learners who will enter a
world that is increasingly relying on global, socially sensitive and creative thinkers.
Research linking play with creative and flexible responses has been available for the past
40 years (Pellegrini, 2009).
Conclusion
Children in preschool today will be the work force in 2040. To best support them,
we must return play to childhood and ensure that as we add more content into our
preschool curricula, we commit to a playful learning pedagogy. Just when children need
14
to discover the pleasure of learning and the importance of taking the perspective of the
other, just when children should be maximizing their problem solving and creative
abilities, research suggests that direct instruction reduces children’s ability to adapt in
school, acquire crucial social and emotional skills, and respond to school’s demands
(Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2009). In contrast, when children have the opportunity to participate
in free play; to be treated as whole children with brains and hearts; and to experience
learning in a playful and engaging way, they learn and they thrive. Learning and play are
not incompatible. For young children, learning is best achieved via play.
15
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