Integrating Play Into Literacy Instruction: Strategies For Your Classroom (REL Midwest)

Summary

This engaging video by REL Midwest illuminates the benefits of integrating play-based learning into literacy instruction in classrooms. Teachers are encouraged to embrace play as an intentional and meaningful way to enhance young students’ learning experiences. The video highlights how play-based methods not only bolster early literacy skills and executive functioning but also aid in children's social and emotional development. Through play, students are more likely to engage, understand, and retain information, thereby meeting educational standards in an innovative manner. By letting go of traditional control, teachers can foster an enriched learning environment where students are excited about learning and actively participate in their education.

Highlights

• Play-based learning involves students in deeper, more meaningful educational experiences. 🌈
• It supports the development of literacy and mathematical skills, even enhancing executive functioning in children. 🎓
• Teachers can incorporate play without relying on worksheets, fostering engaging and interactive classroom environments. 📝
• Play-based strategies promote important social skills such as sharing and communication. 💬
• Students exposed to these methods are more willing to take educational risks within a supportive learning environment. 🤝

Key Takeaways

• Play-based learning enhances literacy skills and executive functioning in students by engaging them deeply in the learning process. 🎉
• Combining educational standards with play can foster a more innovative, fun, and motivating classroom environment. 📚
• Teachers may notice a decline in behavioral issues as students become accustomed to play-based learning. 🤗
• Through play, students improve their social skills, such as sharing and communication, vital for their development. 🌟
• Embracing play-based instruction requires a shift in teaching approach but ultimately benefits both students and educators by creating an engaging atmosphere for learning. ✨

Overview

Integrating play into literacy instruction revolutionizes how children engage with learning. By harnessing the power of play-based methods, teachers can create lessons that are not only educational but also fun and stimulating. This approach allows children to explore and understand concepts deeply by being actively involved in playful learning experiences, ultimately leading to a richer educational journey.

The flexibility of play-based learning enables teachers to cover educational standards in an innovative way. Not only does this strategy encourage children to develop their literacy and mathematical skills, but it also aids in honing their critical thinking abilities and executive functioning. As students delve into this interactive form of learning, teachers can observe a difference in both academic outcomes and classroom dynamics.

Play-based learning also has significant social benefits, helping children develop essential life skills. By engaging with peers through educational play, students learn crucial social abilities such as communication, empathy, and cooperation. Teachers can foster a positive and inclusive classroom climate where students are eager to participate, leading to decreased behavioral problems and increased enthusiasm for learning.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Play-based Learning Play-based learning involves engaging students actively in their learning experiences, promoting a deeper understanding and meaning-making. The approach focuses on intentional learning objectives while ensuring the process remains playful and engaging.
• 00:30 - 01:30: Benefits of Play-based Learning This chapter discusses the benefits of play-based learning in education. It highlights how play-based learning enhances children's spatial and mathematical abilities, as well as early literacy skills like storytelling. Moreover, it emphasizes the role of play-based learning in developing executive functioning skills, self-regulation, behavioral monitoring, and meaningful peer engagement.
• 01:30 - 02:30: Implementing Play-based Instruction The chapter 'Implementing Play-based Instruction' emphasizes the importance of integrating play-based teaching methods in education. It outlines how teachers can model and support play to enhance brain development and achieve educational standards without relying solely on traditional worksheets. A significant component of this approach is the development of social skills, including sharing, communication, and making eye contact, all within a safe learning environment.
• 04:00 - 05:30: Phonics and Sound Recognition The chapter on 'Phonics and Sound Recognition' discusses the importance of risk-taking in children's learning and highlights how play-based learning enables teachers to become more familiar and build stronger relationships with students. Through engaging in play-based activities, teachers can integrate students' backgrounds into classroom experiences, creating meaningful connections. The chapter emphasizes the necessity of hands-on activities for kindergarteners, as these activities are essential to maintain their motivation and excitement for learning.
• 06:30 - 12:00: Story Retelling and Comprehension The chapter emphasizes the developmental differences in attention spans and concentration abilities among four- and five-year-olds. It suggests that educators should adapt their lesson plans accordingly, such as by breaking down a 20-minute lesson into four shorter five-minute lessons throughout the day, to better match the children's ability to stay engaged.
• 11:30 - 13:30: Dramatic Play and Literacy Development The chapter focuses on the importance of dramatic play in promoting literacy development in children. It emphasizes the role of fun and motivated learning experiences in enhancing literacy skills. The use of play-based literacy centers is highlighted as a way to provide these engaging and educational opportunities.
• 13:30 - 16:00: Teacher's Role in Play-based Learning This chapter explores the teacher's involvement and responsibilities in play-based learning settings. The teacher should strategically plan lessons by integrating play elements into educational objectives. Specifically, the concept of teaching syllables and letter sounds through play is highlighted. It emphasizes the need for teachers to adopt innovative approaches to achieve educational goals while maintaining an engaging and playful classroom environment.

Integrating Play Into Literacy Instruction: Strategies For Your Classroom (REL Midwest) Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 Play-based learning is the intentional use of engaging students actively in their learning experience. It's a deeper learning experience for children, in which they are actively engaged, and also starting to make meaning of ideas. There are particular things we want kids to learn, and yet, we want it to be playful and interesting and involving.
• 00:30 - 01:00 Those, to a lot of teachers, I think, seem like they're going in totally different directions. And I don't think that's the case at all. We know play-based learning, it actually encourages children's spatial and mathematical capacities, as well as their early literacy skills, such as the ability to tell stories in a logical fashion. We also know that it's a key element in building executive functioning skills, or self-regulation, and being able to monitor their own behavior, and engage with their peers in a meaningful way.
• 01:00 - 01:30 And having teachers model that for them and support that - scaffold that engagement is really helpful in pushing that brain development. Your standards and your student outcomes are at the forefront of any lesson design, and you can achieve that without worksheets. You can achieve that through play-based instruction. A play-based approach, overall, needs to have a strong emphasis in social skills, as well. That requires a child to know how to share, know communication skills, make eye contact when they're connecting with their peers. It's safe. So, the safer the learning environment,
• 01:30 - 02:00 the bigger the risk the child is willing to take. Play-based learning really allows teachers to become much more familiar, and build stronger, more positive relationships with their students, and that they're engaging them and pulling that experience into the classroom. Once you get past the first few months, and you really know your students, you understand their background, that is something that can be built into the connections that you're making. It is important for kindergarteners to have that hands-on activity. It's key for them to feel motivated and excited.
• 02:00 - 02:30 It's important that we recognize that four- and five-year-olds don't have the same attention spans, ability to sit for long periods of time, ability to concentrate. You have to plan accordingly, and that might mean something as simple as changing the activity more often. Instead of that 20 minute lesson, maybe it's four five minute lessons throughout the day. Just think, as a five year old, what you would like to do is,
• 02:30 - 03:00 you would like to have some fun, some motivated learning experiences. And through the play-based literacy centers, you will provide those.
• 03:00 - 03:30 When I plan my lessons, I need to look if I wanted to teach syllables, or letter sounds, how I'm going to
• 03:30 - 04:00 transfer that into something that makes sense. They feel motivated, and they feel fun, because the activities need to be prepared for them to feel that, to include that into their learning. We need to make sure that children, early on, learn letters and start to understand the phonological system of our language.
• 04:00 - 04:30 When you're three, or four, or five, and you're at a stage of life where you're learning dozens of new words, every single day, as you develop from toddlerhood to going off to school, this great explosion of vocabulary that happens with young kids, you're not hearing - you're not perceiving the individual sounds as much as you're focused on the words themselves. And so, being able to get kids to focus on the sound, separate from the meaning.
• 04:30 - 05:00 I for itch, i-, i-, i-, J for jump, j-, j- j- j- j-. You try to make it playful. You try to make it about song and language, and so on. The research says teaching phonics is effective with young children. And that it not only helps them then, but it continues to be beneficial. It's been measured right through middle school and high school.
• 05:00 - 05:30 The ultimate goal is, the youngster has to be able to hear the sounds and distinguish them.
• 05:30 - 06:00 I mean, when kids are first starting out, it isn't even the phonemes. It's not those individual sounds you hear within the word. It's the words themselves: can you separate them out? Now, I want you to use your bubble gum and stretch all the way to the end of the word. What is at the end of the word: bug? Talk to your partner? The end? What's at the end? B-U-G. What letter is that one? G! It is G. Oh, man. Students got another point.
• 06:00 - 06:30 Alright, last letter. We're listening for the middle sound. Show me your roller coaster, remember? We're going to go middle, up, and then down. Okay. So, here's B, that's first. B-U-G - turn to your partner, what is in the middle? Turn to your partner... Oh! What did I hit? I hit "am", so I get to come over with my pencil. I want you to do at least the front page.
• 06:30 - 07:00 So, when you're at the library, you can help tell the story of the mitten. The first animal is that brown one. It has an M for its name, it's the mole. You can find the mole and put him in.
• 07:00 - 07:30 You can find - here he is. You can find the rabbit and put him in the mitten. Readers are able to explain it and talk about the characters, the setting, the main events in the text, which is what we saw students doing today. You know, go back and retell that familiar story. You might have puppets or things that came from, you know, a store, or maybe you just draw them yourself. You have your kids draw them. You put some things on popsicle sticks. And that's, you know, a way that students can act out a story.
• 07:30 - 08:00 Think of a young child who's listening to stories being read to him by his kindergarten teacher. And the teacher wants him to do something like retell the story later. How do you remember that? How do you hold all those facts? Well, if you have an organizational structure, if you either can tell what it was in the original story, or you can impose your own on it, you're more likely to remember it. They were able to use the book to help guide them through, and use the puppets to help retell the story
• 08:00 - 08:30 and comprehend what was going on in the actual story. You know, every couple of weeks, we'll have a new book with a character, so that keeps the library kind of interesting, and keeps them like, wanting to learn and engage. With that young child, starting to teach them that stories have certain kinds of structural components to them. There's always going to be a setting there of some kind. That is, the author's going to tell you when this happened, where this happened, that kind of information. They're going to place it in time and space. You can remember that.
• 08:30 - 09:00 There's usually going to be a main character. You can remember who that character is. That character is usually going to face some kind of a problem. And so, if you know those kinds of parts, you can start to summarize and remember and retell, and use the information to do what you want to do with it.
• 09:00 - 09:30 Trenton, does your story have a title? - Uh, yeah. What's the title of your story? - Uh, a panther. A panther. The title is, "A Panther". The children are really learning a lot of great comprehension skills when they act out a story. The author of the story is having to think about the narrative structure and sort of how it will progress. And as I take the dictation, I can help him sort of structure his story so that it makes sense.
• 09:30 - 10:00 I can ask questions and clarify a little bit so that he gets his ideas clear, and we can make sure the story makes some sense. So, Jacob, why don't you scoot over here so you can be part of the audience. - Do we need a setting? Do we need the setting? Oh. Where does it go? He just goes - I don't know. - He goes on vacation. And trampoline! - And a trampoline park. We have two settings. The actors that are the children that are portraying the characters in the story really have to infer
• 10:00 - 10:30 the meaning when they're acting it out. So, they have to make some assumptions as they go, and infer where the author was going with his story. Now, he bumps his head. And he goes to the doctor. Okay, did the doctor check him out? - Yeah. Okay, what happened? - And he just goes on the vacation. The panther did? He just go on vacation.
• 10:30 - 11:00 Okay, fly together to vacation. - The audience, too, has to derive meaning from the story as they're listening to it. And they're helping each other, if an actor kind of freezes up in his character role, the audience is jumping in and telling him what he should do next, and helping him sort of follow the plot of the story. He called out, red lion! - Red lion! And the airplane crashed. And there was a fire. Crash, Aaron! - What should you do?
• 11:00 - 11:30 Look at - look at the author. He's giving you an idea. And there was a fire. And they come back to life. - Who came back to life? An airplane. - Oh. And the airplane came back to life! The end. Nice job. It is a piece of paper and a pen. And a group of children. I have done this in the hallway while we're waiting to get drinks. I have done it in the gym while we're waiting for an assembly to end.
• 11:30 - 12:00 It's an activity that you can do at any time and at any place. That dramatic play has a huge increase in literacy development, comprehension, vocabulary recognition, recall of events, sequencing of events. It also deepens their vocabulary and thinking about using words, such as setting, such as the storyline, the author, and understanding the implications of that, and the different roles that people have within each book. So, not only are we building their cognitive capabilities, but also starting to build empathy,
• 12:00 - 12:30 as well as other social emotional skills, and engagement with peers, which is pivotal to early development. Play-based learning helps bring literacy concepts to life through actually having children engage and tell their own stories, and connecting it to their community, their families, their own experiences. So, asking children to act out a story will actually show a lot of what they've experienced and what they bring to the classroom, and how they actually are understanding what's happening, and their comprehension of the story in and of itself.
• 12:30 - 13:00 I actually think about the play driving the academics. We definitely have academic components tied to state standards that we meet and we assess three times a year. But for me, the play is really the driving factor. This play is very intentional. It's not just free choice, which is important, but it's also very intentional of, here's what I want these students to learn as a result of
• 13:00 - 13:30 the standards that I must teach for this grade level. But how can I get there in an innovative way? And that's play-based instruction. You always have to worry about your audience. And so, if I'm teaching a group of five-year-olds, they're going to be wiggling in two and a half minutes. And so, I have to deliver it in a way that the audience is going to hear it, that the audience is going to gain from it. It doesn't always have to be some esoteric, complicated, oh, it's going to take me a long time to prepare for this lesson.
• 13:30 - 14:00 It could just be as simple as, how are you going to have the kids respond to the question, and that could be very active, or playful, or funny, or silly, whatever. Kids need to get up, they need to use their body. Like, I will often tell my students, when we use our eyes, our mouth, our body, our brain, we learn it better. One more thing that really helps in having children play in meaningful ways is to model for them
• 14:00 - 14:30 how to use the materials, and how to use the centers. Playing demonstrates rule following, turn-taking, reciprocal conversations, interacting with peers, helping one another. Those basic foundational skills that we want our students to walk in the door having, play provides. I think a lot of teachers are hesitant to try play-based learning, primarily because it means a release of control, or a concern about behavioral management. But what actually occurs is, as children get used to the idea
• 14:30 - 15:00 of play-based learning, and the modeling is happening with teachers, there's actually a decrease in disciplinary issues. In all honesty, you just need the resources that you have in front of you, and it's thinking about approaching it differently. Taking informal visits to their classrooms before and after schools, checking out what we're doing, talking about it at lunch time, sharing materials, sharing ideas. I'll walk in their classroom, like, ah, what did you do for that? So, I kind of sometimes just look in their room, and I'm like, that looks great. What did you do? Where did you get it? Like, how can I do it? The best thing you can do is go and try some of these ideas out.
• 15:00 - 15:30 Start slow. Take that chance, and let go of control. Something new takes time for children to adjust to. And so, I would give it a week, give it a month, don't stop after the first day; what you'll start to discover is, once those expectations become clear, there'll be the deeper understanding, and you'll have children, at the end of the day, not wanting to leave. My advice is just to start. Don't be afraid. You will love it. - If it fails, it's okay. You're never going to go wrong when you're playing.
• 15:30 - 16:00 Trust the kids, and follow their lead.