Play Captains on Play Streets: A Community-University Playful Learning and Teen Leadership Collaboration

Playful Learning Landscapes (PLL) merges playful learning pedagogy with community spaces to create playful learning opportunities for children, families, and communities. Prior PLL projects have demonstrated effectiveness in enhancing social interaction between children and caregivers by creating opportunities for social interaction derived from the learning sciences literature. In the present case study, a university-based team of PLL researchers partnered with a local community-based organization (CBO) that provides educational, skill building, and job training opportunities for teens in low-income neighborhoods. PLL provided consultation and training to transform the CBO’s Play Captains program into a Playful Learning program where local teenagers led playful learning activities for children on city streets (Play Streets) that were closed to vehicular traffic by Philadelphia’s Parks and Rec department. The teen Play Captains also conducted research observations of children on streets and completed surveys that assessed their own personal growth as a result of their experiences as Play Captains. Results suggest considerable social interaction and use of learning language among children on the Play Streets where Play Captains ran playful learning activities and significant increases in Play Captains’ self-confidence and understanding the benefits of playful learning. We discuss key lessons learned that can help to inform future university-community playful learning collaborations

Shovels and Swords: How realistic and fantastical themes affect children's word learning

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Research has shown that storybooks and play sessions help preschool children learn vocabulary, thereby benefiting their language and school readiness skills. But the kind of content that leads to optimal vocabulary learning – realistic or fantastical – remains largely unexplored. We investigate this issue as part of a large-scale study of vocabulary learning in low-income classrooms. Preschoolers (N = 154) learned 20 new words over the course of a two-week intervention. These words were taught using either realistic (e.g., farms) or fantastical (e.g., dragons) storybooks and toys. Children learned the new words in both conditions, and their comprehension knowledge did not differ across conditions. However, children who engaged in stories and play with a fantastical theme showed significantly greater gains in their production knowledge. Reasons for and implications of this result are discussed

Portrait of early science education in majority dual language learner classrooms: Where do we start?

Despite the growing interest in early science education, there is much left to be explored, particularly in majority Dual Language Learning (DLL) classrooms. The current study examined 1) early science opportunities across classroom contexts in majority Spanish-English DLL Head Start classrooms, 2) the languages (i.e., English and Spanish) that teachers used to engage DLL children in science, 3) and how teachers’ discussion of scientific and engineering practices and disciplinary core ideas related to children’s academic outcomes. In a sample of 411 children (ages 3-5) from 34 Head Start classrooms, the current study found that teachers discussed and encouraged more practices during science lessons than circle time, dramatic play, and story time. There were no differences in teachers’ discussion of core ideas across contexts. Teachers used the same amount of English and Spanish to discuss practices and core ideas. Teaching physical science was associated with children’s science outcomes. Making observations and discussing life science were associated with children’s math outcomes. Teaching math, making observations, and developing and using models were related to children’s executive functioning. Findings from this study demonstrate that science opportunities occur across preschool classroom settings. Additionally, it provides evidence that teachers may be supporting DLL children’s home language while discussing science. Finally, results indicate that teaching science supports children’s academic performance in several outcomes. These findings have implications for DLL education policy as science may be a domain where teachers can support children’s home language and their learning across multiple domains

Accessing the Inaccessible: Redefining Play as a Spectrum.

Defining play has plagued researchers and philosophers for years. From describing play as an inaccessible concept due to its complexity, to providing checklists of features, the field has struggled with how to conceptualize and operationalize "play." This theoretical piece reviews the literature about both play and learning and suggests that by viewing play as a spectrum - that ranges from free play (no guidance or support) to guided play and games (including purposeful adult support while maintaining playful elements), we better capture the true essence of play and explain its relationship to learning. Insights from the Science of Learning allow us to better understand why play supports learning across social and academic domains. By changing the lens through which we conceptualize play, we account for previous findings in a cohesive way while also proposing new avenues of exploration for the field to study the role of learning through play across age and context

Beyond Counting Words: A paradigm Shift for the Study of Language Acquisition

The 30-million-word gap, the quantified difference in the amount of speech that children growing up in low-resourced homes hear compared to their peers from high-resourced homes, is a phrase that has entered the collective consciousness. In the discussion of quantity, the complex and nuanced environments in which children learn language were distilled into a singular metric—number of words. In this article, we propose examining children’s language environments by focusing on what caregivers communicate to children and how they communicate it. Focusing on the features of the language environment promotes a more inclusive approach to understanding how children learn and the diverse contexts in which that learning occurs

Assessing the Language of 2-year-olds: From Theory to Practice

Early screening for language problems is a priority given the importance of language for success in school and interpersonal relationships. The paucity of reliable behavioral instruments for this age group prompted the development of a new touchscreen language screener for 2-year-olds that relies on language comprehension. Developmental literature guided selection of age-appropriate markers of language disorder risk that are culturally and dialectally neutral and could be reliably assessed. Items extend beyond products of linguistic knowledge (vocabulary and syntax) and tap the process by which children learn language, also known as fast mapping. After piloting an extensive set of items (139), two phases of testing with over 500 children aged 2; 0–2; 11 were conducted to choose the final 40-item set. Rasch analysis was used to select the best fitting and least redundant items. Norms were created based on 270 children. Sufficient test-retest reliability, Cronbach\u27s alpha, and convergent validity with the MB-CDI and PPVT are reported. This quick behavioral measure of language capabilities could support research studies and facilitate the early detection of language problems

Accessing the Inaccessible: Redefining Play as a Spectrum

Defining play has plagued researchers and philosophers for years. From describing play as an inaccessible concept due to its complexity, to providing checklists of features, the field has struggled with how to conceptualize and operationalize “play.” This theoretical piece reviews the literature about both play and learning and suggests that by viewing play as a spectrum – that ranges from free play (no guidance or support) to guided play and games (including purposeful adult support while maintaining playful elements), we better capture the true essence of play and explain its relationship to learning. Insights from the Science of Learning allow us to better understand why play supports learning across social and academic domains. By changing the lens through which we conceptualize play, we account for previous findings in a cohesive way while also proposing new avenues of exploration for the field to study the role of learning through play across age and context

Using Verb Extension to Gauge Children’s Verb Meaning Construals: The Case of Chinese

Verb extension is a crucial gauge of the acquisition of verb meaning. In English, studies suggest that young children show conservative extension. An important test of whether an early conservative extension is a general phenomenon or a function of the input language is made possible by Chinese, a language in which verbs are more frequent and acquired earlier. This study tested whether 3-year-old Chinese children extended a group of familiar verbs that specify various ways to carry objects. Shown videos that portrayed typical, mid-typical, or atypical carrying actions (as verified by Chinese adults), children were asked to judge whether they were examples of specific Chinese carry verbs. Children’s verb extensions were mostly limited to typical exemplars, suggesting that an early conservative extension may be universal. Furthermore, extension breadth was related to the onset of verb production: verbs acquired earlier elicited more extension judgments than those acquired later

Editorial: Modeling Play in Early Infant Development

International audienc

Supermarket Speak: Increasing Talk Among Low-Socioeconomic Status Families

Children from low-socioeconomic status (SES) families often fall behind their middle-class peers in early language development. But interventions designed to support their language skills are often costly and labor-intensive. This study implements an inexpensive and subtle language intervention aimed at sparking parent-child interaction in a place that families naturally visit: the supermarket. We placed signs encouraging adult-child dialogue in supermarkets serving low- and mid-SES neighborhoods. Using an unobtrusive observational methodology, we tested how these signs affected adult-child interactions. When signs were present in supermarkets serving low-SES neighborhoods, both the amount and the quality of talk between adults and children increased significantly, compared to when the signs were not present; signs had little effect in middle-SES supermarkets. This study demonstrates that implementing simple, cost-effective interventions in everyday environments may bolster children's language development and school readiness skills. © 2015 International Mind, Brain, and Education Society and Blackwell Publishing, Inc