Exploratory Play Essay

Literacy is conventionally used to describe the ability to read, write, listen and speak. This allows us to communicate efficiently and effectively. The term ‘literacy’ has been expanded beyond that simple definition to include the ability to use language as well as; numbers, images and other means to understand and communicate as it is the dominant symbol systems of a culture. Literacy is essential to ensuring children are able to communicate, understand and make sense of their surrounding environments. There a number of insights that teachers are able to gain on the topic of strategies that aim to develop children’s oral language in a Kindergarten to year 2 classroom setting.

Many educations systems place a high importance on developing
a child’s oral language, as almost all classroom based activities rely on oral language. The level of oral language knowledge and competency of some students can be substantially diverse from the demands of the curriculum, either at a much lower or higher level. Many of a child’s oral language skills in early childhood are dependent on the opportunities they get to converse with other children and adults within their facility. Listening and speaking are closely related and many children often when learning to speak will first start by listening, thinking and then mimicking others in order to try and communicate. The level at which a child develops their oral language skills can largely depend on their interactions in the early childhood classroom - “Environments should stimulate both the quality and the amount of growth in language.” (Scafer, Staab & Smith, 1983).

Play and oral language are closely related for this reason.
During play, children are able to engage in a number of activities containing different materials, objects, people and ideas. Children engage in different types of play throughout their childhood and as they learn and develop, so do their play activities. Types of plays include; constructive play where children are able to use materials to construct and design a range of illustrations. Exploratory play where they are can explore their surrounding environment by investigating, discovery and trying things out. Sensory play draws on children making use of their senses by engaging with and exploring a range of materials both natural and manmade such as water, clay and fabrics. The importance on each of these types of play is vast as it draws on the idea that each child’s experiences are diverse and active. Play can provide valuable context for speaking and listening as in many types of play it is necessary for children to communicate with each other. A stimulus rich environment can smooth the progress of a child’s learning and practicing of oral language skills and promote growth in
language.

The Social Interactionist Perspective (Fellows & Oakley, 2014) focuses on the concept that language development for children occurs through the concept of social interaction.
This could be through the process of interaction with peers, or adults. Child-directed speech is often used in early childhood settings as a way of fostering their language by social interaction using this concept. “They need access to the language that allows them to ‘express their thinking, clarity their misunderstandings, or question others’ perception’ (Otto, 2014, p. 306). The early years of the primary school setting are the beginning years where there is a much larger emphasis on language lessons in the classrooms where children are given as many opportunities and chances as possible to enhance and develop their literacy
skills.

In many early childhood settings, there will be activities where children have the opportunity to observe and listen to a story told by their educators or their peers. Activities such as story time can facilitate for those experiences and allow children to gage the educator’s tone of voice, body language and characterisation. Children are then able to understand the different circumstances in which each of these components of the story are followed by these auditory and visual cues. Each of these components fosters a child’s listening and speaking skills in many distinct ways that feature fairly strongly in an early childhood setting.

Each child is at a different level of developing their oral language and it is important that teachers are able to accommodate for all types of learners. In early childhood facilities, there are a number of learners who are linguistically and culturally diverse in their oral language capabilities. Children with a foreign cultural background or, English as a second language, may find it more difficult to converse and interact with students of the same age as them due to a lower level of development in their oral language skills.

There are a number of difficulties that early childhood educators face when teaching in a classroom is the diverse cultures and levels of literacy understanding in each of their students. Children from different cultural backgrounds such as those of Indigenous cultures, are often more visual and oral learners as a large part of their cultural lives are dependent on oral and visual representations more so than writing. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, the ability to speak or use words and phrases of Indigenous languages is a critical factor in cultural identity, individual and community wellbeing. As a way of integrating a more oral oriented literacy learning approach into the curriculum, many teachers use modified versions of book club as a way of developing a child’s language skills. Educators in early childhood settings may modify this activity by reading the books out loud to the children and then having discussions in groups or as a class. Oral activities used in the class not only give children of other cultures a chance to hear their peers give an oral explanation in their own words. Exercises where culturally diverse learners are able to express their feelings about a specific idea or circumstance in a book are beneficial these activities allow their peers to pick up on and or learn new words describing their experiences.

This can be similar to children who come from non English speaking backgrounds as there may be words that are translated incorrectly. Activities based on a largely oral interaction are the most efficient when teaching literacy skills to young children. In this case as listening and speaking is how the majority of young children develop their literacy skills. Early childhood educators are then able to work with these children to foster their oral language skills in a way that not only sustains and develops their oral skills, but also improves their reading and writing as well as speech.

All of these strategies and insights are a fundamental part in early childhood learning environments. It is therefore conclusive that literacy education in early childhood settings are crucial in ensuring that young children have the best possible opportunities and the necessary chances they need in order to thrive in developing their literacy skills throughout their lives.