This week’s article summary is 'Play-Based Learning in Kindergarten is Making a Comeback.'
The article traces the decline of play-based learning in early elementary grades since the passage of No Child Left Behind legislation in the early 2000s. The intent behind the law was to improve student learning by increasing the ‘rigor' in school.
Unfortunately, when non-educators attempt to improve student learning, they typically implement old-fashioned, ineffective methods: more solitary seat work, more direct time on task, more rote learning, more testing.
Especially in public schools, this has become the dominant pedagogy in early elementary grades.
This change not surprisingly hasn’t improved student learning, but it has left many kids bored and disconnected from school . As a result, play-based learning is making a comeback in some public elementary schools. (I write ‘public schools’ because a lot of private-independent schools like Trinity never abandoned play-based learning.)
The benefits of play-based learning are manifold: student empowerment and engagement; social-emotional development, e.g., self-confidence, working with others; increased student learning (see the study described in the article).
But, while play-based learning from the 1960s was by design unstructured, today’s focus is more on what’s now called playful learning or guided play: teachers as diligent observers who as needed help guide and facilitate student learning.
As admissions season is upon us, our message to prospective parents is Trinity allows students -- even older ones – the opportunity to play, explore, and discover, and that our faculty provide classroom activities that are meaningful and relevant to their students’ developmental level. There is always intentionality behind the fun and joy of learning!
Our students perform well on standardized tests, not because we teach to the test but because of how we teach our students.
Joe
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Over the past 20 years, imaginative play areas that once occupied a dominant part of the kindergarten landscape—think dress-up corners, easels and paints, stacks of blocks—have, in many instances, been replaced with literacy corners and science centers. Getting along with classmates and learning to follow simple instructions from a teacher also have been sidelined as the primary goals of kindergarten. Now, most kindergarten teachers are focused primarily on preparing young learners for future academic success.
The changes have not gone unnoticed by educators, parents, and policymakers.
“What I was noticing as a kindergarten teacher is that the opportunities for kids to come in and have chances to play, to experiment and test how the world works, were being pushed out for more academic instruction that wasn’t necessarily aligned with where their skill levels were or the experiences they had,” said Christopher Brown, the associate dean for teacher education at the University of Buffalo’s Graduate School of Education and a former kindergarten teacher. “That’s continued to be a concern with teachers that I’ve talked to for the past 20 years.
Decision makers in some states and districts have begun to heed concerns raised by Brown and other education experts about the direction kindergarten has taken. As a result, some schools are returning play to its prominent role in kindergarten.
As Brown noted, teachers have been raising concerns about changes to kindergarten for two decades. That time frame coincides with the passage of No Child Left Behind, the federal education law in place from January 2002 to December 2015. The law, which sought to improve public education for all children, led to an increase in standardized instruction and accountability measures related to academic achievement.
The pressure schools felt for their students to perform academically trickled down to even the earliest grades.
Nesbitt attributes the pressure to ensure that students are performing on grade level to the rise in what she calls “passive, didactic, large-group instruction” in grades as early as kindergarten.
“Nobody wants to not see students being able to read at grade level or be at grade level in math,” said Nesbitt. Still, she said, this goal inadvertently may have led schools to “push down” expectations that were not developmentally appropriate for young students.
In several states, children begin taking standardized assessments throughout the school year as early as kindergarten.
In recent years, some educators have begun to push back against the “academization” of kindergarten. These voices have gotten the attention of state policymakers; in turn, a few states have begun to push for a return to play in kindergarten. One new state law read: “Educators shall create a learning environment that facilitates high quality, child-directed experiences based upon early childhood best teaching practices and play-based learning that comprise movement, creative expression, exploration, socialization, and music.”
Free, or unstructured, play retains an important place in the kindergarten classroom, believe some education experts. It allows children to explore, imagine, and socialize independently. But it’s generally not been tied to any specific academic goals.
“I love free play, and free play has its own rights. It’s great for social development. It’s great for helping kids build their confidence,” Nesbitt said. “But it’s not going to organically, on its own, teach kids how to read.”
So, schools are starting to adopt play-based or playful learning, in which teachers guide students in playful activities designed to grow specific skills. For example, when students are building with blocks, the teacher could ask facilitating questions like, “What do you think will happen if you add this heavier block on top?”
Play-based learning can boost students’ academic skills, research shows. A 2022 review of 39 studies that compared guided play to direct instruction (when a teacher delivers clearly defined, planned lessons in a prescribed manner) in children up to 8 years old found that guided play has a more significant positive impact than direct instruction on early math skills, shape knowledge, and being able to switch from one task to another.
But kindergarten isn’t just about acquiring academic skills, note education experts. Play-based learning also has the potential to help teach young learners lifelong skills.
“A lot of people are leaning heavily into the importance of play-based learning for the kinds of soft skills they can teach. I call them unconstrained skills,” Nesbitt said. “These are the skills that are not based on content-specific knowledge but rather, things like: How do we teach kids to collaborate with each other? How do we teach kids to be good communicators? How do we help them be critical and creative thinkers? How do we give them the motivation to want to be a learner?”
