Play and oral language development

Contributing Author: Hannah Simmons

This article was written as part of the team’s preparation for the 2023 Right to Play Conference hosted by the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, University of Oxford.

Introduction

Children inevitably use language during play. Play regularly involves children communicating with playmates, interacting with adults, or perhaps singing songs – all of which are language-based occurrences. Closer consideration of how play invites children to acquire and produce language can help us to better understand and leverage the ways in which play provides unique opportunities for effective oral language development, namely: vocabulary, phonology, grammar and discourse skills. (See also our Blog series on syntactic development in children).

Free Play and Oral Language Development

As discussed in our previous blog, Perspectives on Play, free play is defined as play which is unstructured and child-directed. During free play, children create and explore imaginative scenarios in a way which feels interesting and meaningful to them. This stimulates oral language development in a number of ways (highlighted below). 

First, free play involving more than one child draws on children’s existing language skills to facilitate communication with play partners. Children use language to negotiate rules for their play, particularly when play requires everyone to subscribe to the same imagined or symbolic reality. For example, Let’s imagine this is a spaceship and we are all aliens. Through communication with others, children draw on and practice the words they know, and may also acquire new words, phrases or grammar through mimicking the language of their peers. 

At the same time, imaginary play is an opportunity for children to explore, in a meaningful way, vocabulary they may not have cause to use in their everyday lives. For example, a child may imagine themselves in a jungle, providing context to name and describe exotic animals not seen in their community. Likewise, symbolic play - like pretending a television remote is a phone - is an opportunity to role-play scenarios children have observed, allowing children to imitate language they have been exposed to (for better or worse!). 

Interpersonal play equips children with the socio-emotional language they need to express their own needs and understand and get along with others (Ramani, 2012). In terms of expressing one’s own needs, we see children articulate and justify their interests both within play (such as telling a play partner to bring them an imagined ‘medicine’) and about play (such as explaining why they should take on a particular role in a game or roleplay). 

Interpersonal play is also widely considered a safe environment for children to experience and resolve conflict (e.g., Singer, Golinkoff & Hirsh-Pasek, 2006), which often means drawing on socio-emotional language skills. An obvious example is saying I’m sorry. However, as children mature, we see the development of strategic use of vocabulary, grammar and discourse in, for example, conflict resolution. Children may use verbs which such as ‘think’ or ‘feel’ to express their understanding of a situation, or incorporate the past tense to indicate their original motivation: I thought you wouldn’t let me play with you. Children thus begin to show an awareness of how language can be used as a trigger to escalate or deescalate conflict (Mayer, 2000). 

Taken together, free play provides rich opportunities for children to practice and explore the oral language skills they have already (to some extent) mastered. This notion of ‘practice’ rather than ‘growth’ comes from the fact that children predominantly play with others who match their language ability and thus playmates typically reinforce but not necessarily grow one another’s language skills.  Even when children of mixed language abilities play together, they are not intentional about supporting their play partners’ language development (Bowman, 2014). That is, an older child may have more advanced oral language skills but may not use these to provide definitions, invite extended explanations, or to give meaningful feedback. Indeed, the most effective talk for growing children’s language skills during play depends on quality language scaffolding (e.g., Silverman et al., 2013; Wasik & Jacobi-Vessels, 2016). 

Adult-Directed Play and Oral Language Development

Guided play lends itself to supporting oral language development due to its emphasis on scaffolding (Wasik & Jacobi-Vessels, 2016). In guided play, the play activity is initiated by the adult while the child remains an active agent in deciding how it takes shape. 

While the child plays, the adult ‘scaffolds’ their learning by asking open-ended questions and providing prompts, tips and feedback. The aim is to help the child stretch their skills beyond what they can do on their own, deepen their thinking and extend their understanding of concepts. Specifically, scaffolding helps to: improve the child’s recognition of the different sounds in a word (phonological awareness) and pronounce words accurately, introduce the child to new words and expand their understanding of known words, enhance the child’s awareness of different sentence structures, recognize the use of grammar, and build the child’s fluency and rich language in discourse.  

Research has found guided (or ‘adult-directed’) play to be effective in supporting the development of speaking and listening skills in children.

A longitudinal study by Dickinson and Porche (2011) investigating language and literacy skills among preschoolers found teachers’ correcting utterances and analytic talk about stories during shared book reading predicted fourth grade vocabulary (mediated by the child’s own level of earlier receptive vocabulary from when they were in preschool). 

Silverman, Crandell and Carlis (2013) reported that teachers who coupled reading books aloud with teacher-initiated hands-on play activities which encouraged children to use target words meaningfully (such as drawing) saw greater increases in word learning than those teachers who only used read-aloud sessions.

Wasik and Jacobi-Vessels (2016) present four ways in which adults can employ conversational scaffolding techniques to support children’s language development through play:

1. Asking the child questions about their play which invite extended responses. For example, a child playing with a toy car made from a plastic bottle could be asked: Where is your car going? What are the passengers going to do when they get there? These kinds of questions prompt children to develop their discourse skills because they elicit more detailed answers, consisting of multiple sentences.
2. Providing the child with meaningful feedback. For example, if a gust of wind ruins the picture a child has drawn in the dirt, one might say Let’s find somewhere sheltered to draw in the dirt so your pictures won’t be destroyed by a big gust of wind. Feedback is an opportunity to expose the child to new words, such as ‘gust’ or ‘destroyed’ which gain meaning from the situation they describe. At the same time, feedback helps the child to reflect, and may also support them in exploring new directions of play. In this case, the child might look for a less exposed spot to play in, or to create a picture with materials that won’t blow away. Feedback also entails providing definitions for words used by, or introduced to, the child. In the above example, an adult could explain the word ‘gust’ as when the wind blows very strongly for a moment. Defining words helps children to deepen their understanding of vocabulary which, in turn, enables them to use words appropriately.
3. Introducing new vocabulary to the child. While providing feedback can also include mentioning and defining new words, adults can also introduce words purely to grow the child’s vocabulary. In other words, an adult observing a child’s play can simply mention and explain words they believe the child does not know but are relevant to the play activity. For example, a child building a tower might be told, Your tower is tilting. ‘Tilting’ means it is leaning to one side. In this case, the adult is only providing a new word and not information to enhance or alter the play itself. Introducing vocabulary during play allows children to learn new words in context, and to acquire richer, more descriptive language about the activities they are engaged in. 
4. Allowing the child time to respond. Children may take time to respond to open-ended questions, particularly when engaged in a hands-on play activity. However, for such questions to support children’s language development, they must be given sufficient opportunity to gather their thoughts and find a way to draw on their existing language skills to express themselves. However, when adults expect rapid responses, children may not fully represent their ideas or language abilities which subsequently prevents adults from being able to effectively scaffold their learning. On the other hand, quality scaffolding requires adults to be sensitive to when a child’s slow response is a sign that they have not understood or lack the expressive language skills to communicate a response. In such instances, scaffolding the child’s language can mean equipping them with vocabulary, or supporting them to discover their answer through a process of play-based enquiry. 

Conclusion

In this blog we have explored how play can support children’s oral language development. During free play, children regularly produce language and are exposed to the language of their play partners. However, richer support for oral language development is offered by guided play activities in which adults provide scaffolding to extend the breadth and depth of children’s language skills in the context of a meaningful and engaging activity. Understanding and appreciating the ways in which play contributes to children’s language skills is critical for harnessing play activities to deliver enjoyable learning experiences for children. 

About the Author 

Hannah Simmons is a Researcher Affiliate in the TalkTogether project with research interests in socio-emotional, language and literacy development in the Global South. With expertise in African Studies and Swahili, as well as Child Development and Education, Hannah’s work has included research and development of edutainment content, design and management of education projects for bilateral donor agencies, and consultation on education initiatives with a focus on East Africa. Recently, Hannah worked as Impacts Research Officer for TalkTogether. Hannah is currently Tanzania Co-Country Lead for the EdTech Hub – a global research partnership which supports governments in LMICs to generate and apply evidence to strengthen education systems.

References

Ramani, G. B. (2012). Influence of a playful, child-directed context on preschool children's peer cooperation. Merrill - Palmer Quarterly, 58(2), 159-190.

Singer, D. G., Golinkoff, R. M., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (Eds.). (2006). Play=Learning: How play motivates and enhances children’s cognitive and social-emotional growth. Oxford University Press.

Mayer, B. (2000). The dynamics of conflict resolution: A practitioner's guide. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Bowman, B. (2014). The word gap and the common core. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=W0T-owgtd3Y.

Silverman, R., Crandell, J. D., & Carlis, L. (2013). Read alouds and beyond: The effects of read aloud extension activities on vocabulary in head start classrooms. Early Education and Development, 24(2), 98–122.

Wasik, B. A., & Jacobi-Vessels, J. L. (2017). Word Play: Scaffolding Language Development Through Child-Directed Play. Early Childhood Education Journal, 45(6), 769-776.bown

Dickinson, D. K., & Porche, M. V. (2011). Relation between language experiences in preschool classrooms and children’s kindergarten and fourth grade language and reading abilities. Child Development, 82(3), 870–886.