Play, Learning & Self-Regulation

The Power of Play
Nov 4 · 4 min read

Let’s talk about play’s relationship with learning.

What is play?

Play is creative, its child-initiated and child-led, it’s exploratory, its iterative. A child directs their own play. They can choose where to take it, they can make up the rules, they can choose who they want to be a part of it. It can start and stop whenever the child likes, it doesn’t even need to make real-world sense. Free play, specifically, is characterised by its open-endedness and voluntary participation. The child has autonomy.

Play & Learning

It’s safe to say that children learn through play (you can read up on Vygostky’s Socio-cultural theory for this, and for a different view, Piaget’s Constructivist theory). Society has done a good job at establishing play spaces, developing play objects and games/songs/rhymes, socialising children with their peers, etc. There is a huge amount of research that shows that play is essential for children’s social and emotional development, general well-being and their cognitive development. Let’s just say that play is good!

When we think of play in these scenarios we are almost certainly thinking of the free play I described above. The reality is that children cannot free play all the time. As a mum I have most certainly reminded my kids (interpret that however you like) to stop playing around and get your shoes on, and to stop playing with your food and eat nicely. Play cannot always be open ended and it can’t always go on forever, and there is no place more evident of this than school.

School work

At school, children become aware of the distinction between work and play fairly quickly. There is playtime/recess: a break from work and a time for play. This may not happen as much in the first year of school: the kindergarten/reception year is often more focused on play compared to older year groups. Teachers tend to use more traditional pedagogies (the way we teach) that are significantly less playful because of the pressures of the curriculum (this we know from recent research I was involved with with teachers in the UK). Even though we know the power of play and the rich experiences children receive from play, they receive direct instruction. Even if schooling isn’t as didactic as what I’ve described (after all, all contexts are different), think about the choice that characterises free play (lots) and compare that to standard classroom practice (very little choice at all). There is also a some research on types of choice that best benefit children: a distinction between low-level picking and meaningful choosing (my ex colleagues, the PEDAL team at Cambridge University, are focusing on this right now).

Guided Play

There is a form of interaction somewhere between free play and didactic instruction: guided play. During guided play the adult structures learning opportunities (in line with curriculum outcomes at school perhaps) yet the activities are child-led, and so the child maintains ownership and direction over the course of the learning. Just like play. And so it is deemed developmentally appropriate. Interest is a motivational variable: the more interested the child is, the more motivated they are to learn and the better they learn. Play is fun and enjoyable and therefore intrinsically motivating, and that’s why it supports learning .With guided play, specifically, the child remains to have some choice over their learning.

Executive Functions & Self-Regulation (a little intro)

Executive functions (EFs) are a set of cognitive processes that control our behaviour. They reside at the front part of our brains, at the top of our forehead. They enable us to plan, pay attention, remember instructions. EFs contribute towards our ability to problem-solve, regulate our emotions, persist and demonstrate resilience. These skills combined ultimately lead to self-regulation and self-control. All quite useful not on only for learning, but life, right? Sounds like the kind of skills that we might want our children to have.

Guided play & Self-Regulation

There is some evidence that children who are involved in educational programs that use playful approaches show better EF skills. A study in 2007 showed how children were better at inhibition control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility (see Diamond, Barnett, Thomas,& Munro, 2007). In a classroom this might look like a child who is focused, not calling out, able to remember the task at hand and able to be flexible in their approach to a problem. A child who can start something, take a break, and come back to it knowing where they left off.

To sum up: play is good, but not always appropriate in every learning environment. Guided play offers a way for children to learn that combines the beneficial characteristics of play with added guidance from an adult. I will talk about what effective guidance could look like in another post, in formal and informal learning spaces. But there you have it for today: the link between play, learning and self regulation.

Written by

The Power of Play (or PoP) is where I share my thoughts & ideas about play in early learning. For everyone, but with an academic edge.

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