Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/whats-new-in-play-research/5011853/
verybody is an expert in identifying when young children are at play, because we can see it happening, and we expect that children will play. We are less ready to consider that some of the same processes go underground throughout adult life. By looking at what play is, what children do while they engage in play, and what benefits they derive from play, we have a chance to learn how they think and what they know. Sociodramatic play is a powerful developmental activity and form of assessment.Defining and Describing Play Processes
Play is symbolic (acting "as if" or "what if"), meaningful, active, pleasurable even when serious, voluntary and intrinsically motivated, rule-governed (implicitly or explicitly), and episodic (shifting spontaneously and flexibly). The philosopher John Dewey (1933) suggests a continuum of fooling... play... work... drudgery, and indicates that a balance between play and work is the reasonable place for education to take place. Psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978) sees play as a rule-bound form of impulse control that leads children's underlying representational development. He sees play as a "scaffolding" that takes place as children engage in social activity at the edge of their learning potential ("zone of proximal development"). When children play, they are able ...