The purpose of this study was to examine the involvement of early childhood pre-service students (PSSs) in children's constructive play and highlight how this involvement supported children's play skills towards advanced play behaviours as seen by previous literature. Drawing from the conceptual framework of the Zone of Proximal Development, as…

This article explores the usefulness of detective role-play as a research method to facilitate young children's critical thinking. The study examines four specifically designed detective play experiences, adopting an ethical rights-based approach to research with children. This qualitative multiple-case study is grounded in play-based pedagogy…

Empirical research shows that adults' role in play with infant-toddlers is to provide children with play materials, observe from a distance, and control the surrounding dangers. An international trend to increase children's cognitive skills at a very early age has established a need to better understand toddler's conceptual learning and how this…

Jeremy Sawyer recounts that, after Lev S. Vygotsky's death, Jean Piaget conceded the Russian psychologist correctly understood the social origins, functions, and developmental trajectory of children's egocentric speech (now called private speech) but dismissed this work as irrelevant to children's egocentrism or nondifferentiation of perspectives.…

Early childhood is a time of great creativity. Building creativity into the learning environment should be natural, organic, as observant teachers follow the child. This article provide tools for building creativity through play across the creative arts including dramatic play, movement and dance, music, and visual arts. Additionally, play and…

Using a content analysis method, this study develops a culturally based inventory of play categories from parents and children reports and explores how such types of play varies in environment and time. A total of 171 parent-child dyads from 13 Hong Kong kindergartens participated in the study. Results reveal that play practices reported from Hong…

Playing is an activity that affects significantly the psychological development and learning in preschool age. Opinions among researchers and practitioners are divided about adults' role in children's play. Despite being a children's activity, high-level, complex social play hardly appears without adult mediation. According to the narrative play…

The aim of this study is to analyze the effect of Traditional Game Education Program (TGEP) on language development of pre-school children. Dependent and independent variables were determined as the children's language development scores and "traditional game education program", respectively. The study group was determined with…