The importance of Play

Play in young children helps to nurture the individuals developing needs, through play a child will improve its physical development through developing co- ordination; social development through sharing, socialising and co-operating with peers; cognitive development and the exploration of the world; language development from speaking, listening and trying out new words and lastly emotional development, through experiencing a range of emotions and reacting to these. Both Piaget and Vygotsky have recognised that play is an important part of a child’s social and cognitive development; Froebel and Bruce support play in development and found many advantages of play in early childhood.

 

According to Mildred Parten (1932) there are six stages of play:

1.       Unoccupied: this stage is made up of random movements with no objectives with newborns and infants;

2.       Solitary: between the ages of 0 to 2, the child can play independently and alone as it is still self- centred and also shy;

3.       Spectator: during this stage at 2 to 2 ½ years old, the child observes other children playing but does not part take: through this the child widens his vocabulary;

4.       Parallel: at the ages of 2 ½ to 3 years old the child will play alongside other children and may not have much contact but will still learn from each other;

5.       Associative: from 3 to 4 years old children will play separately from one another but are also involved with what each other are doing. This stage of play builds on many developmental stages and also builds friendships;

6.       Co-operative: from 4 years plus all stages of play will have now come together in the co-operative stage and each child will truly start playing together.

A few years ago I created a case study and observed a child over a period of time, I also studied the child in each area of play and could link the child to each of these stages. Each child moves through the stages at different ages depending on the environment around them. The child I studied was my nephew from the age of 1 ½ to 4 years old, whereas through observing my niece she moved through these stages at an earlier time as she always had someone to play with, my nephew.

Along with the different stages of play there are also different types of play:

1.       Functional play: This type of play develops fine motor and gross motor skills, the physical activities also encourages the child do be active;

2.       Constructive play: this involves exploration such as making a den from pillows or creating a house from Lego blocks, this play teaches children the manipulation of building and fitting things together.

3.       Socio-dramatic play: this form of play is the most difficult as children must negotiate characters and co-ordinate with each other. Scenarios can be real-life based and also fictionally based.

4.       Symbolic play: Materials and objects are used to represent people and objects.

5.       Small world: this type of play involves changing figures into another world, for example creating a small town out of Lego.

Bruce (1996) says, ‘It is becoming increasingly clear through research on the brain as well as in other area of study, that childhood needs play. Play acts as a forward feed mechanism into courageous, creative, rigorous thinking in adulthood.’