Playing around with literacy : children imagining possibilities as they play

Objective: In this paper we ask what can be learnt by being-with children as they engage in imaginative play within their more-than-human worlds. We are interested in understanding their interactions with each other, and with the human and non-human worlds within which they play. Further, when they choose to invite adults to abandon something of their adult selves to enter into their play, what we can learn from the ways in which they represent themselves and the spaces in which they engage. Perspectives and theoretical framework: Play has been co-opted as an approach to pedagogy in early childhood education, and is now commonly thought of as an appropriate approach to promote learning in early childhood education. More recently we have seen the field lament the loss of ‘play’ as the sector has dealt with top down curriculum and pedagogical shifts towards more traditional styles and approaches. Amongst all of this debate about play and young children, what seems to often be forgotten is what we might learn by being keenly interested in young children when they take up time and spaces to play – without adult direction, and when in control of their action in material worlds. Methods and data sources: Participants included three young girls and the human and non-human participants in their spaces of imaginary play. Our methods involve the production of short videos, still photos and field notes and the collection of artefacts produced by the children. Two instances of play will be featured. In the first, data was collected as two young girls invited an adult to play in their fairy kingdom. In the second instance, three young children prepared and presented a performance for an adult audience. In this case much of the play was kept secret, as the girls played together in a space where adult attention was neither required nor allowed. The data analysed in this instance relates to the products of play, including a video recording of the resultant performance and the written and visual texts produced within the performance. Results: Young children’s self initiated imaginative play offers new ways of thinking about literacy and literacy pedagogies. Rather than thinking about the operations of standard print literacy as prior, young children integrate elements of emergent print literacy into gesture, movement, song, dance, and story through their sensory and embodied immersion in their everyday human and more than human worlds. Scholarly significance of the study: We assert that learning from children’s imagining, as they negotiate and name the worlds in which they play, is significant at this time of human entanglement in the fate of the planet. As the early childhood education landscape struggles to deal with its own hesitance to either promote or admonish play as an appropriate pedagogical approach in children’s young lives, we believe that it is important to shift our gaze from policy and adult responses to education, toward young children and what we can learn from their worlds