Roles and behaviours of preschool children in literacy themed symbolic play
Date
1997
Authors
Segato, Karen Louise
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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to identify and examine the roles and behaviors demonstrated by three, four and five year old children who participated in literacy themed symbolic play. A naturalistic, observational study was used to observe the literacy uses, behaviors and role types of the 16 preschool children after the addition of literacy materials to the dramatic play centre. The study found that the children did exhibit specific behaviors and roles identified in research describing older children involved in this emergent literacy strategy. The first category analyzed was social context (i.e., solitary play, parallel play, paired play and group play). The most frequent social context demonstrated was parallel play, followed by paired play. The second level of analysis examined how children use literacy or literacy uses (i.e., importance of activity, models, economic and business transactions, memory, presentation of information, identity confirmation, self expression, personal relationship, source of information, oral message). There were no incidents of memory support as a literacy use in any age group. The most frequent literacy use demonstrated across all age groups was source of information. The majority of five year old females participated in this literacy use, followed by four year old males and three year old males. The third category of analysis was literacy behavior which included: environmental reading , functional reading and writing, recreational reading and writing, academic reading and writing, read aloud, browsing and reading extension. The researcher added two behaviors: oral discussion and physical manipulation for a total of 12. Children across all age groups demonstrated all the literacy behaviors except the three year olds who did not demonstrate academic reading or writing. The most frequent literacy behavior was physical manipulation for both genders in all age groups except five year old females who demonstrated oral discussion as the most frequent behavior. Three and four year old males participated in more literacy behaviors than females. The five year old females participated in more literacy behavior than the five year old males. The final category of analysis was role type (i.e., model, inviter, coach, director, player, negotiator, affirmer, contradictor, facilitator, regulator and experimenter). Blocker was one role type added by the researcher. The children participated in all 12 role types; the most frequent role type was player, followed by director. More three and four year old males participated in assuming role types than females and the five year old females assumed roles more often than the five year old males. The findings of this study suggest that preschool children do participate and demonstrate specific literacy uses in behaviors and roles when involved in literacy themed symbolic play. The inclusion of literacy materials in the dramatic play centre may be considered an effective and beneficial emergent literacy strategy.