Play -- for Development and for Achieving Learning Outcomes

Early childhood education is the first and most important stage in the lifelong learning continuum because it provides the developmental foundation for all later learning. Whether it is the ability in adulthood to participate effectively in sport for recreation or vocation, pursue a career in business, be a caring partner and parent, or make meaningful contributions to community life as a citizen, the basic knowledge, skills and dispositions that lie at the heart of these adult role performances can be traced back to early childhood learning experiences.

The coordination, agility and laterality skills for playing an effective game of tennis, for example, begin to develop during the formative years when children are progressing from walking to balancing on one foot, hopping, skipping and pivoting. When foundational skills are optimally developed during the early years, later learning is easier and more enjoyable; when they are not, later learning becomes more difficult, slower, and sometimes fails to occur at all. Physical abilities and positive dispositions toward exercise, fitness, physical challenges and sport are developed during play activities that provide opportunities to practise skills, achieve performance targets, and adopt healthy attitudes.

Managing a budget, including making decisions based on probabilities and calculating projected earnings, are skills based on the development of number concept in early childhood; this includes believing in numbers and mathematics as dependable symbol systems for finding solutions, calculating risk, making predictions or evaluating the status quo. Children develop logical-mathematical concepts of quantity, equality and measurement, even before they master arithmetic skills and manipulation of mathematical formulas. Confidence in numbers and understanding concepts during the early years positively affect children's later willingness to learn about and believe in the value of mathematics for everyday living and problem-solving.

Number concept and logical-mathematical understanding are facilitated by play activities that involve matching, classifying, seriating and measuring for which the performance to be achieved is clearly described. Purposeful planning of outcomes-based activities does not diminish the invitational nature of the play and learning curriculum, nor does it inhibit children's freedom to choose what they want to do from a range of possibilities. As Catherine Maulsby explains in her article A Kindergarten Perspective on Play, play promotes learning when it is guided by the teacher who purposefully plans the play and learning environment. Teacher planning does not interfere with the spontaneity, creativity and joy that children experience while abandoning themselves to play; rather, planning enhances play.

Habits of mind and patterns of behaviour that are essential for effective learning and success in school, such as attending, task orientation, ability to delay gratification, and self-discipline, are practised during everyday play and learning activities. The child who chooses a puzzle, tries alternative solutions and finishes the puzzle is developing an orientation towards persistence and appreciation of the intrinsic rewards of success that will last a lifetime. A child who embarks on a project to build a spaceship with the hollow blocks and asks for assistance from resource persons, tries out a variety of concrete objects from several other learning centres, and explores a range of alternative configurations before settling on one that "looks right," is actively engaged in exploration, investigation, experimentation and problem-solving that is the basis of mature inquiry and research.

Learning in all domains -- physical, social-emotional and cognitive -- is the by-product of play that results when children are challenged, trusted, encouraged, supported, responded to and respected. Developmental progress does not occur during repetitive, mindless activities where children are required to imitate, follow meaningless rules, and accept someone else's schedule for finishing and learning. Early learning relies on play experiences in which children make their own choices and decisions, initiate interactions, assume responsibilities, merge their own interests with that of the group, care about the needs of others, cope with adversity, and are challenged by tasks that prompt them to stretch.

Purposeful planning for play involves knowing the early childhood learning outcomes that are essential for effective lifelong learning and success in everyday living. These learning outcomes guide curriculum planning that is based on play, the child's natural medium for learning. Play is not a random activity for children; it is purposeful, active, generative and usually leads to the results that children intend. It is important to capitalize on children's orientation to play by creating environments and planning activities that foster optimal development and lead children to the achievement of explicit learning outcomes.

A learning outcome describes the performance that a child is able to demonstrate once the learning has occurred. The performance usually rests on an integration of knowledge and skill, that is, knowing that and knowing how to, which involves being able to apply what one knows. Learning outcomes describe results achieved and demonstrated whereas performance objectives denote intention and propose that something should occur. Learning outcomes assume that assessment and evaluation will occur to document that a performance has been demonstrated instead of assuming that the essential learning has occurred just because a child has been exposed to a set of play and learning experiences. A learning outcomes approach addresses the need for educational systems at all levels to be accountable for results achieved. Early childhood education programs that provide evidence of the learning results achieved by young children are better positioned, these days, to defend the importance of early education for children two to six years, as a crucial first stage in the educational continuum.

The demonstrated performance described by the learning outcome should be challenging enough to require the child to combine what he knows with what he is able to do (skill) and, often, the habit of mind or disposition to do it well and happily in order to achieve an effective result. An example of a psychomotor learning outcome appropriate for early childhood would be "the child has successfully demonstrated the ability to negotiate a five-stage obstacle course having been given verbal directions at the beginning of the course." The learning outcome "the child has successfully demonstrated the ability to choose, begin, follow through, overcome obstacles and complete a challenging task," describes an ability and a disposition that lie at the heart of becoming a lifelong learner. The young child who is able to sort successfully a set of concrete objects according to two properties, color and size, has developed a beginning concept of classification that contributes to understanding science.

How should learning outcomes be used in planning curriculum and play and learning activities? First, teachers and parents should identify clearly the learning outcomes that young children need to achieve in order to be ready for formal schooling; they should be closely linked to the normal developmental tasks of early childhood in the physical, affective and cognitive domains. Next, they should observe and assess children's developmental readiness, including their present capabilities and interests, for new learning. Teachers should then examine the various steps in the learning sequence related to a learning outcome. This involves breaking the learning outcome down into its component parts (i.e. the various elements of learning that lead to the performance). These component parts may be built into a curriculum plan which includes specific play activities, each addressing at least one component of a learning outcome. A wide range of play activities should be available in a rich and varied learning environment where children are free to choose. In practice, the planning process might look something like the following.

A learning outcome for a preschool program is: "the child has reliably demonstrated the ability to represent and describe things in terms of position and direction." The teacher analyzes the learning outcome and determines that its achievement involves: learning how to observe things from different directions; recognizing relative positions (e.g., beside, inside, across from); knowing words related to position (e.g. here, there, in, out); knowing words related to direction (e.g. over, under, around, through); locating things in the playroom, school and neighbourhood, and so on.

The teacher takes each of the stepping stones associated with the learning outcome and plans a play activity that requires children to practise and apply the skills, knowledge and dispositions. For example, beside "knowing words related to direction," the teacher describes three activities.

1. In the active play centre, set up a five-stage obstacle course involving a tunnel, balance beam, bench, box, and coat rack. Provide arrows pointing the direction for the course; teachers may add verbal prompts using the directional words as children approach each obstacle.
2. Play "I Spy" asking children to describe the position and direction of an object instead of its colour.
3. Set up the cars, trucks and village props including signposts in the active role play area.

Once an outcomes-based plan for play and learning is in place, it is easier to assess and document children's developmental progress and performance. Teachers might design a simple checklist that lists each stepping stone and the names of each child in her group. Beside each child's name and under each stepping stone, the teacher creates a rating system that allows her to check "participates," "needs more practice," "successful achievement," and the activity for which the assessment was recorded. In this way, the teacher assesses and tracks children's progress and achievement so that she knows when they are ready to move on to more complex play activities.

Early childhood programs that are clear about the learning outcomes that young children should achieve, offer challenging play experiences and supportive environments to help them achieve the performances described, and document the learning outcomes achieved by each child, make an important contribution to the educational continuum from preschool to postsecondary education. It is a pipe dream today to assume that simply championing the value of play in children's development and learning will convert politicians and policy-makers who are usually more concerned with accountability, cost-effectiveness and the bottom-line. A more proactive strategy is to be explicit about the links between specific play experiences and learning outcomes that will contribute to children's success in formal schooling, and to show how the results will be evaluated. This systematic approach helps to demonstrate that the benefits to be gained from early childhood programs are worth the public costs. As pressures mount for educators at the elementary and secondary school levels to ensure that students achieve exit learning outcomes identified for each of those levels, greater emphasis will be placed on the developmental readiness of young children for their early years of formal schooling. The time is right to be clear about the contribution of early childhood education to all later learning.

The primary years may provide practice in some foundational developmental tasks, but the pressure to "school" children and achieve learning outcomes for elementary and secondary school does not leave much time for reinforcing the developmental foundation that is needed for school success. As early as grades one and two, the child who has not laid a solid developmental foundation and acquired a disposition for learning is at risk of developing negative attitudes toward school and learning. Children tend to back away from demands for which they feel inadequate and lose interest in tasks for which they feel no personal investment or internal motivation. In this unhappy circumstance, children see school demands as an imposition and believe that the standards are beyond their reach.

Instead of abandoning programs for young children, value-conscious governments should invest more resources in programs for all young children that will positively influence their effectiveness as learners. Canada cannot afford to neglect the most important stage in the learning continuum and still expect to enlarge the human potential of our citizens and remain competitive in an increasingly sophisticated world. Now, more than ever before, play-based early childhood education guided by developmentally-appropriate learning outcomes is the answer to many of the educational and economic challenges we face.

Dale Shipley taught early childhood education at Algonquin College for 15 years. She is the author of Empowering Children: Play-Based Curriculum for Lifelong Learning, Nelson Canada, 1993. The second edition of this college textbook is scheduled to be published in August, 1997. Dale is currently manager of the College-University Consortium Council, Toronto, Ontario.

This article appeared in Interaction (Spring 1997), published by the Canadian Child Care Federation.

Posted by the Canadian Child Care Federation, August 1997.

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