Get In The Game Analysis

A Close Examination of the Benefits of Unstructured Play in Public Libraries and Teaching

Annemarie Powell’s article “Get in the Game: Encouraging Play and Game Creation to Develop New Literacies in the Library” discusses the ways in which play allows children to develop fundamental skills such as new literacies, competencies, and deeper relationships and understandings of the subject material (Powell, 2013, p. 836). Importantly, Powell articulates the necessity of integrating games and playtime with curriculums so that children can better learn and connect with the subject material. In order to demonstrate the importance of pretend play and video games when teaching children, Powell discussed a strategy game that was utilized
836). The findings and arguments presented in Powell’s article are highly relevant to the subject area of early childhood and public libraries. In this way, pretend play and video games can be employed in order to facilitate the learning process and allow children to form critical thinking and better connections to their studies. The implementation of play and game creation in early childhood learning and public libraries will provide children with a hands on approach to learning that will be highly beneficial to their cognitive ability and understandings of literature. Fundamentally, this paper will discuss Annemarie Powell’s article at length and will argue in conjunction with Powell’s contention that
Importantly, Powell discusses the notion that playtime is the first mode by which children begin to learn about and understand the world around them (Powell, 2013, p. 836). Games such as pretend play, traditional board games, and video games allow children to learn important concepts such as sharing, turn-taking, and strategy (Powell, 2013, p. 836). Powell also presents evidence which demonstrates that games provide children with the ability to develop emotional competency skills including, but not limited to, self-regulation, empathy, and the ability to see and understand different perspectives (Powell, 2013, p, 836-7). This enhancement in emotional competency skills allows children to better connect with other students and their peers, thus showing that game play is highly beneficial to children in a myriad of ways. Not only do children connect better with their peers as a result of instituting game play, children also connect better with the subject material and works they are reading. According to Powell, “Research indicates that play around stories may encourage the development of critical comprehension skills while simultaneously developing students’ love of stories and their ability to connect with books on a personal level” (Powell, 2013, p. 837). This ultimately demonstrates the idea that game play allows children to better understand, empathize, and relate to the