LO 1.1

Learning Outcome: 1.1
Explain how early literacy & numeracy concepts are socially situated, through clearly describing how the concepts are connected to & supported by social relationships & contexts

Play has a huge impact of the development of literacy and numeracy in the early years. Jean Piaget, a Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for studies around the development of children, classified play into three different categories corresponding to different stages of cognitive development (1962): practice play, which dominates the sensorimotor stage (from birth to approximately 2 years of age); symbolic play that becomes prominent during the preoperational stage (from ages 2 to 7); and games with rules, which comes into prominence during the concrete operational stage (ages 7 to 11). Within this system, sociodramatic play falls under symbolic play. The term “symbolic” suggests, sociodramatic play is very much associated with children’s growing ability to use symbols for a variety of functional purposes external to the symbols themselves: e.g., to represent an object absent from immediate physical context, to construct imagined social realities, and regulate communicative events typically happening in certain contexts.

According to (Piaget, 1962) dramatic play permits children to fit the reality of the world into their own interests and knowledge. Drama is the portrayal of life as seen from the actor's view. In early childhood, drama needs no written lines to memorize, structured behaviour patterns to imitate,  or an audience. Children only need a safe, interesting environment with the freedom to experiment with roles, conflict, and problem solving. Opportunities for dramatic play that are spontaneous, child-initiated, and open-ended are important for all young children; children of all physical and cognitive abilities enjoy and learn from dramatic play and creative dramatics.

For my niece S, however, she did not necessarily develop according to Piaget’s theory. S grew up in an environment surrounded by adults only for the majority of the first two-years of her life. She only began interacting with children at about 18-months old, and it was on a very rare basis. Initially, S would play with actions they have seen at home, everyday, such as having a drink or bath.  As Piaget’s theory suggests she should start to interact in play themes such as shopping or cooking as experiences they have encountered, by age two-years, S began engaging in this particular play at about 10-months old, when she was walking and able to set up a play space for herself.  She also started to want to play with themes that are less frequently experienced such as doctors or travelling on a plane.  By two-years old, she was including themes she had seen in books and on the television. She was also engaging in ways she had never before experienced such as spaceships, fairies and pirates. She is now almost three-years old, and has start to include ‘problems’ in her play, to be solved, such as teddy getting sick or doctor running out of bandages.

My point for this message to share the importance around us realising that all children develop differently, at different stages, and often in different sequences, depending on their environmental factors. S was the first grandchild born in the family, surrounded by many aunty and uncles, grandparents and second-cousins; she has been brought up in a very mature environment. Her cognitive development was very rapid compared to her peers at her play group. While Piaget and many other therapists have spent countless years studying the development of children, we must remember that these are just guides and most certainly not all children with follow each scale to the exact movement.

The greatest message I will keep with me throughout my teaching- we are all unique, all different, do things differently, and that is okay, because it takes all kinds of people to make up this world we live in. 

References:

Piaget, J. P. (1962). Play, dreams, and imitation in childhood. Norton: New York.