The Illinois Early Learning Project (IEL) is funded by the Illinois State Board of Education to provide information resources on early learning and training related to implementing the Illinois Early Learning Standards for parents and for early childhood personnel in all settings. The IEL tip sheets offer suggestions to parents and early childhood…

Emphasizes the educational benefits derived from research in dramatics arts. Cites research indicating that role playing has a positive effect on oral language, moral reasoning, and self-esteem. Points out that teachers and administrators do not include dramatic instruction in their curriculum, and offers ways to make dramatic arts more appealing.…

This paper argues the value of drama processes in science classrooms as a way of enabling students to learn openly from and with each other and of enhancing higher order learning skills. Role-playing, focus, and tension are described as constructs to guide the pedagogy of drama processes. (YP)

Describes a case study which collected journals from, interviewed, and observed 23 children as they participated in a 6-week creative drama workshop using the Rutgers Imagination Method. Finds improvement in specific areas of learning, including vocabulary, imagery abilities, and dramatic behavior. (SR)

Discusses improvements in playground design and how playgrounds for young children can be further improved by more focus on gross-motor, social, dramatic, and constructive play. Also examines the largely negative role of activity panels that many playground companies include on their structures, noting that such panels often present academic…

Describes strategies that encourage children to find their own answers to questions--their own or an adult's--through investigation. Also gives suggestions for activities involving finding answers and recording data in different classroom learning centers in areas such as art, block play, music, food, science, and dramatic play. (HTH)

Examined the effect of sociodramatic play on the literacy learning of first graders. Found that sociodramatic play provided a vehicle through which the players practiced what they knew about literacy and provided an opportunity to think about literacy in the context of various play themes. Adult mediation enhanced the players' incorporation of…

Discusses the pedagogical advantages in using live dramatic sketches in the classroom. These include drama as an interactive activity, repetition of language points, use of body language as an effective visual aid, personalized messages to the students, and a display of language in action. (CK)

Describes Project Desert Shield, a curriculum that preschool children and teachers at a U.S. military base in Germany developed to embrace and constructively deal with the interests and concerns of the children about Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm through dramatic play. (Author/BB)

Discussed is the purpose of role playing in the classroom. Suggestions for preparing for role playing are enumerated. The advantages and rationale for role playing in the science classroom are stressed. (CW)

Explores what creative drama is, why it should be included in the teaching of both expository and creative writing, and how language arts teachers can implement creative drama activities to increase student success in writing and to improve learning. Describes how using creative drama to enhance creative writing restores authority to students for…

This case study investigated the introduction of a theme from popular culture into a sociodramatic role-play area in a northern England Nursery Infant school, focusing on its effects on 6- to 7-year olds' literacy activities. Findings indicated that the incorporation of themes from popular culture into the curriculum motivated children whose…

Describes how a seventh-grade teacher introduced her students to poetry by having them create performances of rhythmic poems. Describes how her students created moving performances of poems and responded to poetry with deeper and more personal insights than she had ever seen. Describes students' public poetry performances. Offers examples of…