Describes various types of play typical of infants and toddlers. Includes discussion of the developmental benefits of object play, social play, motor play, and imitation. Focuses on the concept of causality, toddler-invented games, repeated movement to gain mastery, and the beginnings of dramatic play. (KB)

Examined effects on target children's sociodramatic role play of sociodramatic script training in combination with an intervention package consisting of peer role prompting, a group-oriented reinforcement contingency, and visual feedback. Found support for use, with a minimum of teacher involvement, of the peer-mediated intervention package in…

Documented differences in the quality of play in thematic and housekeeping organizational patterns of the sociodramatic play center in a preschool classroom. Found the thematic organization resulted in higher quality sociodramatic play in which the children enacted more roles outside the home, utilized more aspects of their roles, demonstrated…

Explains how high-level play is an instructional strategy that builds language, vocabulary, and underlying cognitive skills necessary for children to become successful readers and writers. Notes that high-level play in the classroom occurs in two major areas, manipulative materials play and dramatic play. Explains that in dramatic play the teacher…

Studies low income special education students decided on a theme/story line/subject for an improvisational drama and developed it into a radio play. Concludes that drama is one effective way to find out what quiet people may have to tell educators about themselves and about complex situations and problems that need to be heard and analyzed before…

Discusses how story enactments can be used in preschool and kindergarten classrooms to allow children to take on the role of storymaker and to provide experiences for children to draw upon as they learn to read. Offers tips for individual story writing and suggestions for group story telling. Asserts that a variety of storymaking experiences…

Proposes several strategies for overcoming obstacles to an integrated methodology, and to student interests and learning, in teaching a foreign language dramatic literature course. The activities focus on both reading and writing of drama, characterization, and interpretation. (CB)

Examines research into the various factors affecting the frequency and complexity of dramatic play. Lists and elaborates on those factors, which include the child's maturity; social and cultural settings; teacher intervention in play; children's individual differences; children's familiarity with and security in play surroundings; and presence or…

Explores the beliefs of an elementary school teacher who consistently used drama in her classroom. Finds that the use of drama is contingent on the teacher's beliefs about the kinds of support provided within the school, about the value of drama, and about her own ability to structure effective drama experiences. (SR)

Discusses how outdoor play can be as effective as indoor play in facilitating young children's development. Offers advice on selection of toys and materials; organization of play spaces; addition of movable toys and equipment; ways to stimulate imaginative outdoor play; and playground safety. (TJQ)

Discusses, in poetic form, the writing of the play "Salvador" from the perspective of the author. Explains her thoughts about writing for children, including didactic relationships with children, didactic functions of art, and how adults teachers try to create a sterilized, lifeless, good-thinking, and artificial world for children when they are…

This study explores a teacher's understandings of the role of play and her use of play in literacy learning serving children from diverse language backgrounds. The participants in this study were a public pre-kindergarten teacher and her class. Data were collected from interviews, informal conversations, observations, and self-reflexive notes. The…

This article seeks to better understand the relation between local and traditional modes of communication and health literacy within the context of a rural West Nile community in Northern Uganda. Drawing on social semiotics (multimodality) and Bakhtin's notion of the carnival, the focus is on a group of women participating in a grassroots literacy…

While some studies have examined second language (L2) learning in young children who have at least one peer who speaks the same first language (L1) in the same preschool classroom (Clarke, 1999; Damhuis, 1993; Fraser & Wakefield, 1986), little research has been done concerning a young child learning an L2 through play in a natural setting in…

Creative dramatics (the spontaneous expression of feelings and ideas in an imaginative manner) brightens the reading program and provides teachers and students with both enjoyable and academically profitable experiences. Any reading teacher can comfortably integrate creative dramatics into the basal reading program. Activities such as creating…