“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning.” American preschool television host Fred Rogers
In a world where technology is ever-evolving and encroaching on children’s time to play, it is essential to put even more emphasis on actively bringing play into the classroom.
But how does play relate to speech, language and communication development?
Engaging in play supports cause and effect learning, symbolic understanding, language acquisition, social interaction and emotional regulation.
Play supports children’s ability to represent reality with objects, for example using a building block for a telephone. When we break language down, words are abstract and represent objects much in the same way.
For children to develop language for meaningful communication, they need to be able to form mental images of things or events they have encountered and then use words to represent and describe them; skills which are first developed and then nourished through play.
By following children’s interests in the classroom and playground, you can effectively encourage communication development and identify any areas for additional focus at an individual, group and setting level.
Below are some tried and tested ideas that can help you take a playful approach to supporting children’s communication skills, including creating more opportunities for child-led play and rich language-learning experiences.
Make time to follow children’s interests
Children spend much of their time at school being directed and following instructions. As play is the primary occupation of childhood, it is important that we create space to let them take the lead.
Try to identify opportunities across the day that lend themselves to being child-directed, aside from breaktime and free play. Are there moments within structured activities that can be more open-ended? For example, could a lesson exploring material properties end with a junk-modelling activity?
Setting up classroom learning tasks on carousel stations can help children to complete activities in the order they chose.
Use comments to support language development as children play
As adults, we often use questions to begin interactions with each other. Try flipping this approach when talking with children and focus on using comments to initiate communication and engagement during play.
Using comments puts less pressure on children, expands their vocabulary, and gives them more scope to talk to you about what they are interested in. For example, instead of “what have you drawn?”, you could say “I love how you’ve mixed the colours”.
Support children’s attention skills in play by waiting
Waiting for children to show us they are ready to communicate can help them learn to regulate their attention, alternating between activity and communication partner. This is different to actively gaining a child’s attention, e.g. by calling their name, which remains important at other times when you need to give instructions.
Dual channelled attention, the ability to focus on two tasks simultaneously, is usually established once children are in key stage 1, but some children will take longer to master this skill.
Can you wait for the child to start the interaction, for example, by looking at you, or saying something? What effect did this have?
Develop listening and speech skills through music and movement
Research has shown that music plays a main role in language development in terms of phonological awareness, grammar, prosody, and comprehension (Pino et al, 2023). Music also acts as a brilliant vehicle for play.
Incorporating nursery rhymes into the day for younger children is a brilliant way to engage them. For older children, can you get them to change the words of a nursery rhyme to link in with the topic they’re learning about?
Playing games such as musical bumps and statues, or using call and response games with clapping rhythms, can support listening skills. The repetitive element of lyrics along with the rhythm and melody can support children to develop their speech sound skills.
Breaking multisyllabic words down and modelling them with a sing-song nature can also support children to build up an accurate representation of the word.
Draw on the power of nature
Famously, in 2018, The National Trust found that children spend half the time playing outside than their parents did at their age.
Being outside lends itself to supporting some of the communication fundamentals such as emotional regulation, it is also a more free environment where children are able to develop their learning in a place other than the classroom.
Using naturally occurring sounds in the environment to develop children’s attention and listening skills can help promote communication skills and mindfulness at the same time. You could create a bingo card for different sounds often heard in your local environment.
Why not go on a nature hunt to collect natural objects to use within a maths class, for example? Use stones or flowers for counting and different size sticks for measurements. Could all these materials be used within an engineering activity? The options are endless!
Use video to build reflective skills
Video a five-minute play or interaction session with you and a child. Watch it back to help identify what the child is doing well with their communication and what supporting strategies you are using throughout the interaction and what effect these have on the child.
Reviewing an interaction allows you as a practitioner to observe things you or the child do that you may not have been aware of at that moment. With an understanding of what’s working well, you can then make a conscious choice to do more of it.
Although it may not be possible to do this with every child in your class, it could be prioritised for those children who are having more difficulties with their speech, language and communication development.
Playful responses to support behaviour
If a child is showing distressed behaviours, often the unseen element behind the behaviour is an unmet need. Play allows for connection and can speak to those needs.
Instead of demanding silence while walking through the corridors, can you choose a quiet animal together and walk like that animal? Drawing on aids, such as puppets, could support less forthcoming children to engage in classroom activities.
Tight for time?
Don’t worry, many games can be easily altered to contain curriculum learning with not much preparation and minimal resources!
You could play “21” and instead of counting to 21, you could list Henry VII’s wives or European countries, for example. How about changing Duck Duck Goose to topic vocabulary e.g. “solid and liquid” and decide which word the children get up and run to?
Use word association games to recap learning within a lesson or topic. You could play “Eye Spy” to pick out words and images from the page in a science textbook. Could you print out two copies of topic flashcards and play pairs or snap?
What other games could you adapt to complement your teaching and add play to the classroom?
Don’t forget
Play is a huge part of a child’s learning and development throughout the primary years and beyond; it is equally important to a year 6 child as it is to a reception child.
We need to advocate for social and tangible play in the face of technology and ensure that children don’t lose opportunities to engage in play as they move through primary school.
As a practitioner, you are a key component of play within the primary school day whether it’s through creating space and opportunity to play or engaging your playful side to encourage your students to play.
Play is a powerful tool and by being in the moment with your pupils, both children and adults benefit from the positive effects it can have. As educators we have a responsibility to create space for children to develop and maintain their play skills, and at the same time, we can support and nurture their speech, language and communication skills.
- Hannah Cook and Holly Strickland are both Speech and Language Therapists for Homerton Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. The trust has developed Verbo – an online speech and language therapy toolkit for children and young people from the age of 2 through to young adulthood. Verbo offers access to screening tools, personalised target trackers, training, and activities and interventions. Visit www.verboapp.co.uk
Further information & resources
- Pino, Giancola & D'Amico: The Association between Music and Language in Children: A State-of-the-Art Review, Children, 2023.