Photo: Alessandra Hartkopf for Strategies for Children

Think Simon Says is a simple children’s game? Think again, suggests a recent item in The New York Times that offers more evidence of the important role of play in developing critical executive function skills in young children.  As I noted in an earlier blog post (With Young Children, Play is the Curriculum), play helps children learn the executive function skills that research finds are important for school success.

“A growing body of research suggests that playing certain kinds of childhood games may be the best way to increase a child’s ability to do well in school,” the Times reports. “Variations on games like Freeze Tag and Simon Says require relatively high levels of executive function, testing a child’s ability to pay attention, remember rules and exhibit self-control — qualities that also predict academic success.”

With Simon Says, for instance. asking children to do the opposite of what Simon says “helps a child develop mental flexibility and self-control,” the Times reports. Researchers at Oregon State University use a game they call Head-to-Toes to assess young children’s development. The game starts with preschoolers copying the teacher’s movement – touching either her head or her toes. Asking children to do the opposite requires more complex cognitive skills, such as attention, focus, memory, self-control and mental flexibility.

Oregon State researchers followed 430 children from preschool to age 25 and found that children’s ability at age 4 to pay attention and finish a task were the greatest predictors of their chances of graduating from college by 25. Another study cited by the Times found that young children who are better at games like Simon Says perform better in reading and math. Still another found that children who began the school year with low levels of self-control improved after playing games like Red Light Green Light, the Times reports.

“Focusing on the how of learning, on executive functions, gives you the skills to learn new information, which is why they tend to be so predictive of long-term success,” Ellen Galinsky, a child-development researcher and author of “Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs,” tells the Times.

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Photo: Alessandra Hartkopf for Strategies for Children

We often say that young children learn through play. We say that play is children’s work. What does research tell us young children gain through play? A recent article in Psychology Today and results of a 15-year longitudinal study, published in Family Science, provide some answers.

As the Psychology Today article notes, there is more to play than swings, jungle gyms and games of tag on the recess playground. Imaginative play – make-believe and pretend – is important for young children’s healthy development.

“Over the last 75 years a number of theorists and researchers have identified the values of such imaginative play as a vital component to the normal development of a child,” Psychology Today reports. “Systematic research has increasingly demonstrated a series of clear benefits of children’s engagement in pretend games from the ages of about 2½ through ages 6 or 7. (more…)

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Photo: Alessandra Hartkopf for Strategies for Children

At a time when direct, teacher-centered instruction in preschool and kindergarten classrooms is increasing, Scientific American offers a strong reminder of the importance of play for young learners.

“‘Just playing’ is in fact what nearly all developmental psychologists, neuroscientists and education experts recommend for children up to age seven as the best way to nurture kids’ development and ready them for academic success later in life,” the article states. (1 2 3 4 Next >)

“Decades of research have demonstrated that their innate curiosity leads them to develop their social, emotional and physical skills independently, through exploration—that is, through play. Even animals as diverse as squirrels, horses and bears engage in, and cognitively benefit from, play.”

Writer Paul Tullis summarizes some of the research. Children instructed in how a toy works, one study finds, are less apt to discover its various attributes than children who explore it without direct instruction. And the landmark Hart & Risley study on children’s language development found that children with the widest, richest vocabularies acquired their trove of words through conversation and playful interactions, not direct instruction. “Storytelling, singing, playing, telling jokes—those are the building blocks of extensive vocabularies.”  Peter L. Mangione, co-director of the Center for Child and Family Studies at WestEd in San Francisco, tells Scientific American.

A dearth of play, the article notes, could have negative consequences. It cites research from the Perry Preschool Project in Ypsilanti, Michigan, which found that half of children who attended a preschool that emphasized direct instruction had emotional problems by age 23, compared with 6% in a high-quality play-based preschool.  “Emphasizing the acquisition of skills such as early reading and geography,” the article states, “comes with a trade-off—less time spent on social and emotional development, which are themselves important to a child’s ability to learn.”

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