How Play is Important for Early Development
The best thing you can do to facilitate your child’s learning is to engage in play. Think about how you learn to use your new phone or gadget as an adult. Most of us figure out how to navigate and find all of our new device’s features by tapping different icons, exploring options, and learning to remember these functions. To put it differently, that is learning through play! It is human nature to explore and test boundaries, but as adults we have way more context and information about the world around us than our tiny counterparts. We know what glue feels like on our hands, or how mud hardens on our socks after drying out while playing outside all afternoon. As adults we’ve experienced social interactions, responsibilities, and sensory input simply through our years of being alive. The key to understanding childhood development is understanding that so much of what we ask children to participate in or be exposed to, especially until about the age of five is brand new to them.
Through play, children have opportunities to practice and develop motor skills (gross & fine), social and communication skills, build vocabulary, learn problem solving techniques, and literacy skills.
Some great ways to facilitate play with your child include:
Follow Their Lead
Let your child lead play time. Don’t get too caught up in your plan of how to work on a skill because chances are kids will throw a few hoops for you to jump through. Instead learn to go with the flow and follow their lead. The more you do this the better you’ll get at organically teaching as you follow a plan that isn’t yours!
Narrate
Encourage and model new vocabulary and context by narrating what your child is doing. This is a technique you can begin to do as soon as your baby is beginning to engage with objects. For example, if your toddler is playing with a toy car and ramp you can narrate by saying things like, “wooosh! blue car is fast. Car goes down. Beep beep! Yay! Blue car is at the bottom.” When you narrate what your child is engaging with you are giving context to what they’re experiencing visually and tactilely.
Play Instead of Quiz
Sometimes well meaning educators and caregivers can fall into the trap of becoming a quiz master to check for understanding in young children. Don’t let your play time vocabulary turn into asking your child repeatedly to identify colors or shapes. Instead of quizzing, keep a notebook or memo on your phone to write down the information your child shares with you organically.
NAEYC: 10 Things Every Parent Should Know About Play
