An increase in the Dual Language Learner (DLL) population has led to a critical need for early childhood educators to understand how to best serve DLL children and their families. This article describes a qualitative multiple-case study that investigated specific teaching practices for DLLs in six community-nominated exemplary preschool classrooms…

Joint attention skills, broadly speaking, refer to the ability to share experiences and interests about objects and events with others in a social environment. Due to their impairment in joint attention skills, children with autism are usually facing communication challenges, for example, being reluctant to socialize and share items with others.…

An article by Angeline S. Lillard and others in the January 2013 issue of "Psychological Bulletin" comprehensively reviewed and criticized the existing body of research on pretend play and children's development. Nicolopoulou and Ilgaz respond specifically to the article's critical review of research on play and narrative…

This study analyses the Play, Dance, and Music course which is located in the seventh semester Music Teaching Undergraduate program prepared by the Council of Higher Education. The aims of the study are to give information about the aim, scope, and the process of the Play, Dance, and Music course, which takes part in the Department of Music…

The word "play" has been characterized across a full continuum of meanings, from valued release time and recess to an essentially unimportant function of the school day that is lacking in purpose. The value of physical activity in our social and educational system has been questioned to the point that many schools are looking to…

Since Margaret Mead's field studies in the South Pacific a century ago, there has been the tacit understanding that as culture varies, so too must the socialization of children to become competent culture users and bearers. More recently, the work of anthropologists has been mined to find broader patterns that may be common to childhood across a…

This article draws on a model of reflection that involves creating meanings through repeated encounters with evocative objects. Responses to one such evocative object, a 20-second video clip of children playing in the fine sand area, illustrates the "turning toward" and then "turning away" from the object to engage with broader…

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) have difficulty engaging in social pretend play, which cannot be explained exclusively by their deficient language skills. Alternatively, the ability to represent mental states (Theory of Mind [ToM]) might be important in appreciating peers' perspectives during pretend play. This study investigated…

The issue is urgent today because at present the organization and content of Physical Education (PE) classes at specialized secondary educational establishments (SSEEs) do not completely meet contemporary requirements. The following negative trends prove that, namely: the physical and psychological health decline in school leavers and students,…

The promise of using games for learning is that play- and learning-engagement would occur cohesively as a whole to compose a highly motivated learning experience. Yet the conceptualization of such an integrative process in the development of play-based learning engagement is lacking. In this analytical paper, we explored and conceptualized the…

This theoretical discussion frames play as a "place" consistent with the tenets of place-based education. We adopt a broad definition of place-based education to include both the environment around the child and the place within the child, their "world of play." We will apply theories of place-based education to demonstrate…

In this paper we conduct a deductive analysis, using Sutton-Smith's "rhetorics of play," of the published kindergarten programs that have guided Ontario kindergarten teaching since 1944. Our analysis is used to gain an understanding of how we in Ontario have arrived at a point where play-based learning has been taken up by developers of…

This research aimed to explore children's play in relation to gender stereotypes and beliefs and practices of educators in preschool settings. A feminist poststructuralist approach framed the design of the research and data were collected in two settings through predetermined categories of play during periods of spontaneous free play. The question…

This article draws out the materialist import of the turn towards universal design in learning. Bringing Brian Massumi's recent work on play together with disability studies, it identifies design as integral to the embodied dynamics of classrooms. Contrasting neo-Darwinist presumptions with materialist insights by thinkers like Tim Ingold, the…

In this survey of the research on psychological approaches to play, the author outlines its various focuses on the similarities and differences in the thinking and behavior of individuals and groups in relation to play and on the environmental factors that influence these. She notes that although psychologists often use standard experimental…