Research School Network: Play and Language Development James Gray discusses the importance of supporting high quality play in the Early Years

A Language of Comprehension and Theory of Mind

It is snack time. Today there is an offering of apples and bananas for children to choose and we sit, as usual, at tables in time planned for interactions with children. Snack time is an important element of our daily routine, where children sit together; eat and talk, and where adults take time to engage in quality, serve and return discussion. Today, as part of the session, I take a banana and make a telephone call: holding the fruit to my ear, dialling a number and speaking to the person at the other end, as though they were equally engaged; before offering the ​‘phone’ to another child sitting at the table, who continues the conversation!


To another, this may be interpreted as a frivolous act of entertainment, or perhaps even silliness on my part. However, the reality is that acts such as this, are a vital piece of modelling, giving young children the beginnings of a ​‘script’ for play, literacy and language development.

Why is it important?

Play can be difficult to define, but is an essential part of the human condition and can be viewed as a vital component of development in the early years. In play, children take on a range of roles and perform at a range of levels; each accommodating the other. Play provides a foundation for children’s current and later literacy experiences, without which, important elements of language and comprehension may not develop. The Education Endowment Foundation early years toolkit, states that high-quality play provision can add an additional five months to the development of children. However, we have to ensure that what we are offering is of high-quality.

What is high-quality play?

Again this is a subjective question and it does of course, depend on the lens through which the play is analysed and our knowledge of the cumulative progression, that play may travel along. Although play is not linear (Bruce, 2008), it is possible to differentiate different ​‘levels’ of play that we might expect to see in children of different developmental stages. We can agree, that we would expect to see a different level of skill from children who were four years of age, compared to children who were two years of age and this predominantly centres upon the level of language and cognition, children display and the important development of theory of mind.

What is Theory of Mind?

Theory of mind (Doherty, 2008) refers to the child’s ability to have a sense of self and how they think and act; an understanding of another’s perspective, thoughts and feelings; and later to be able to take on a role or character, and understand how they would behave, think and feel, within a scenario.

This ability has important links to literacy development (and particularly comprehension) because every time we share a story with children, we are asking them to participate with theory of mind: building representations of the world described in the text and making inferences about the characters’ thoughts and emotions. In order for children to comprehend effectively, they need to have experience of and have participated in relevant linguistic experiences, including:

Speaking as the author of a play story (narrating)
Speaking for the characters (Theory of Mind)
Speaking as themselves, outside of the story (i.e. asking for additional props: ​“I just need to find a bucket…”: stage managing)

Often, books we read to children contain many of these elements.


Supporting High Quality Play

By four years of age, children are able to enter into cooperative social play; begin to actively take on roles in sustained play scenarios and begin to develop theory of mind. Here they negotiate, and share responsibility and leadership. Children often represent personally experienced events, developing their autobiographical memory, including both semantic knowledge (facts and details) and episodic knowledge (feelings and sensations).

One of the most important elements to develop around this time is children’s growing skill as symbol-users. Children become capable of decontextualised thinking (an important indicator of theory of mind): meaning that they are able to both think about and represent something that is not actually present (perhaps a banana in place of a mobile phone).

If we agree that language development is a significant determiner of later lifelong outcomes, it would be reasonable to suggest, that high-quality play might focus on the development of language and social and emotional learning. This is one of the reasons why adults are so important in the play process: offering children both thematic and linguistic support to develop webs of knowledge, which will probably go beyond the play that children might create by themselves alone. High quality play, language and literacy development is contingent upon the quality of the interactions that take place and the environment, which is provided for children to explore. There need to be enough props of interest to sustain playful exploration; useful alternatives for decontextualised play (such as a box that can be used as a car), or provision to create props as required (i.e. by accessing the ​‘making-area’ to create a milk shake for an impending ​‘trip to MacDonald’s).

What is the Impact?

Decontextualised play is important because research shows, the more decontextualised children’s play is, the more literate their language becomes. Children often use a wider variety of connectives; noun-phrases; colourful verbs and are often better at referencing (helping them to ​‘keep characters straight’). Play allows children to be ​‘free’ in their explorations, prioritising the expressive language, which will underpin their later literacy development. Decontextualised play also helps children to develop counterfactual reasoning, an important element of comprehension, as children imagine alternative possibilities to events. For example, when ​‘Johnny slips over on the ice’, children are able to imagine the possible alternative that, ​‘if Johnny had not walked on the ice, he would not have slipped over’ (Walker and Gopnik, 2013). This can then be supported through interactive book talk.

There is a strong body of evidence to support a focus on comprehension, as a key aspect of reading and literacy development: adding an average of six months’ progress to children’s learning (EEF). Comprehension is complex and requires a combination of approaches, however, by providing a foundation of language through play, within children’s earliest years, we can help to ensure that all children receive the best beginning to their literacy journey.

James is EYFS Leader at St. Leonards’ Primary School in Staffordshire. He is also an Advanced Skills Teacher, Evidence Lead in Education and NCETM Accredited PD Leader (Early Years).

References

Bruce, T., 2004: Developing Learning in Early Childhood: Sage Publishing

Doherty, M., 2008: Theory of Mind: Routledge

Education Endowment Foundation: Early Years Toolkit
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/early-years-toolkit

Education Endowment Foundation: Literacy Toolkit
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/guidance-for-teachers/literacy

Walker, C. M. and Gopnik, A., 2013: Causality and Imagination. In M. Taylor (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Development of Imagination: Oxford University Press