Here’s why play is the soul of literacy — and where early literacy begins

October is Dewey’s Month of Play!

My grandson Gus will play with anything.

He’ll jump in a box and pretend it’s summertime and he’s at the beach. He’ll stare out the window and down to the streets below to make up stories about every taxi that passes. And he’s not alone!

Playing is what children do — and they don’t need much from us to get going.

Play is a crucial part of processing all of the things children observe in the big and wondrous world around them. Children play so that they can make sense of it all — so that they can practice and experiment with being in the world. A huge part of this is through story.

Jonathan Gottschall famously wrote that “Children are creatures of story.” The joy and empowerment they experience while creating and acting out stories with friends is clear. Together, they expand their imaginations, developing new characters and weaving increasingly complex narratives. In playing with story, they stretch to the reaches of their imagination and creativity.

Play is how children (and all of us!) exercise and nurture that imaginative, creative capacity. It’s also integral to how children develop cognitively and socially. Making up and acting out stories allows them to start learning how to piece details together — a precursor to more sophisticated reasoning — and lets them get a taste for problem solving and conflict resolution.

Through play, they explore their independence, agency and identity.

Through play, they teach themselves how to collaborate, how to have conversations and how to form connections and partnerships — often building on what they observe around them.

Through play, early literacy starts to take shape. Children naturally develop a comfort with storytelling, expand their vocabulary, and explore how written language works in the world around them.

They experience a strong sense of empowerment, using their knowledge to craft limitless imaginary worlds that spring to life around them, each offering its own lesson about the real world in which they live.

As I am always, always saying: literacy is about empowerment. Writing and reading is a huge part of literacy, but ultimately what we’re talking about is having the tools and the skills children need to express themselves and understand what they encounter. Literacy enhances our agency. It deepens our capacity for thought, learning, communication and meaning making.

Play is the soul of early literacy, and storytelling is the wind beneath its wings.