Reading 2 to 8 September

This time around i had a little difficulty in selecting two literacy and numeracy articles relating to the question  "how does play enhances children's literacy and numeracy"  which i thought was a very important topic and  research also suggests that  play based learning enhances children's cognitive and language skills, which has also been supported by theorists such as Vygotsky, Reggio Emilia and Froebel who were all advocates of play based learning . Children learn mathematical concepts through play  as they have many mathematical experience in their home environment and also  with  parents and teachers support they can apply these concepts of small, large and shape, patterns in their daily life. Also through interaction and communication with family members,community and teacher children learn to use , understand different ways of communication and literacy and then apply them through their play, children develop understanding of the processes of reading, viewing through everyday experience and interactions .The two readings that i selected for this purpose are "Examining the Play-Literacy interface: A critical review and future directions" by Roskos and Christie (2001) and "Children's mathematical thinking" by  Aston(2007).

Main Arguement:

The first article deals with how play enhances children's literacy and the main argument of the article "Examining the Play-Literacy interface: A critical review and future directions" by Roskos and Christie (2001) was  that

a. They did a research to find out whether a play promotes childrens literacy development and  they did that by doing a critical analysis of the study on this subject and came to a conclusion  that 12 out of 20 studies were sound  and proved that a play promotes children's literacy.These studies provided a strong evidence that play serves literacy by

1: Providing settings that promote literacy skills, activities and strategies.

2: Serves a language experience that can build connection between oral and written modes of expression.

3: Provides oppertunities to learn and teach litercay.

The another reading on how play enhances children's numeracy was called" Children's mathematical thinking" by Ashton (2007) which explored how play supports children's mathematical learning and  stated  that mathematics should be integrated involving play, activities and projects and that early childhood educators should  build on children's knowledge by connecting mathematics concepts to daily experience. They article also stated that while engaged in free play children engage in wide range of mathematical concepts and ideas and that play can be regarded as a instructional tool by which informal mathematics understanding develops and provides foundation for complex mathematical thinking.

Implication for the practice:

I think these two article provide a  very useful insight into how a play can enhance and develop children's literacy and numeracy skills and also as a future teacher i see a lot of implication of learning happening through play.While on my placement i saw a lot of learning happening through play where children were engaged in literacy and numeracy skills for example  while involved in play during outdoor activities they would count the steps they would take and while during mat time they  would read a story and later on they would engage in literacy by using the  words used in the books to their play like relating the story " Five little ducks" to the their play.

 Reference List:

1: Ashton, E. (2007). Children’s mathematical thinking. New Brunswick Curriculum Framework for Early.

2: Roskos, K., & Christie, J. (2001). Examining the play–literacy interface: A critical review and future directions. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 1(1), 59-89.