The process by which preschoolers construct cohesive oral text was studied in dramatic and constructive play settings. Four preschoolers, two boys and two girls ranging in age from 51 to 60 months, were videotaped for 30 minutes in their preschool classrooms. It was found that players in both contexts of play repeated introductory utterances to…

Relationships between kindergarteners' symbolic functioning in free play, selected demographic variables (sex, age, and socioeconomic status), and the children's ability to generate isolated written words were investigated. Sixty-five kindergarteners (37 male, 28 female) were tested and observed in their classes over a 4-week period. Play was…

Concludes that the dramatic play context requires children to convey meaning through explicit oral language in order to introduce and sustain play episodes. (FL)

The process by which preschoolers generate cohesive oral text was investigated in two fields of discourse: social dramatic and constructive play. Four preschoolers, 2 boys and 2 girls, ranging in age from 51 to 60 months were observed and videotaped in their regular preschool classroom on 2 successive days during free play periods. Each child was…

This article takes a functional approach to relationships between make-believe play and language development. It is argued that play and early literacy share similarities of function and social context, and therefore both prepare children for similar symbol-using processes. Transformation from oral language to literacy and implications for…

The purposes of this study were to describe elementary school children's rough-and-tumble play vis-a-vis aggression and provide exploratory data on the functional significance of rough-and-tumble play. Results suggest that the incidence of rough-and-tumble play varied according to sex and playground location. (PCB)

The purpose of the study was to observe the extent to which preschool children's actions were guided by private speech utterances in free play and puzzle solving conditions. A second purpose was to examine how the structure of private speech utterances varied according to the context in which they were uttered. Fifteen preschoolers were videotaped…

Through the process of manipulating language through speech play, young children learn the rules of their linguistic system. Metalinguistic awareness implies access to the rule system of language and the ability to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable language usage. (JN)

To investigate the extent to which free play versus a sequenced questioning paradigm facilitated preschoolers' associative fluency, 36 children were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: free play, questioning, or control, and asked to articulate novel uses for conventional objects. Responses in the questioning condition were significantly…

Results of three studies suggested that children's play was mediated by their age, playmates' sex, and play props. Children's behavior seemed to change with age and with the children's consideration of the sex-role appropriateness of interacting in particular play areas and with particular peers. (RH)

Observed rough-and-tumble play in young adolescent boys on the playground. Found that sociometrically defined average and rejected boys spent a greater portion of their time in rough play compared to popular boys and did so with children who were less dominant than they, suggesting that some children exploit play bouts for their own…

Symbolic play and literate behavior involve similar mental processes: the production and comprehension of decontextualized language and narrative competence. Methodological and theoretical issues in recent studies are reviewed. Observational results support the theory of similar mental processes, but experimental results question a causal…

Observations of playground behavior of kindergarteners and second- and fourth-grade students suggested that rough-and-tumble play led to games-with-rules for popular children, and to aggression for rejected children. Findings are discussed in terms of possible effects of the sociometric composition of rough-and-tumble play groups. (RH)

The extent to which free play versus sequenced questioning conditions facilitates preschoolers' associative fluency was investigated in this study. Twenty-four children (12 boys and 12 girls, with a mean age of 50.7 months) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: free play, sequenced questioning, and control. In the sequenced…

Describes factor analysis of preschool children's play behavior, as measured by the Smilansky-Parten play matrix. Varimax rotation solution suggests three factors: Dramatic-Constructive Play, Solitary Behavior, and Functional-Constructive Play. Study suggests that these factors represent constructs of preschoolers' play. (Author/RWB)