1. Time to Play? Playtime and Language Development
Judy Hicks Paulick, PhD
Name is Judy Hicks Paulick. I’m a post doctoral scholar and a clinical associate in Stanford’s teacher education program. In my previous life, I was an elementary school teacher in Compton, California and a teacher educator in the island nation of Tonga. My doctoral research was focused on teacher practice during playtime in Head Start classrooms, particularly as it relates to the language that teachers are providing young dual language learners.
Introduce Session:
Hoping this will be at least somewhat interactive and productive, so I’m going to stop at a few points to have you explore some materials and chat with a colleague.
<<Quick sense of who you all are? Name, role/title, where from?>>
As parents, teachers, and researchers, we tend intuitively to know that playtime is important. But the benefits of playtime are often more difficult to measure—since they are often distal and intertwined with so many other inputs and outcomes. Part of the point of this work, then, is to add to the burgeoning research base around play. The studies I’ll present today are descriptive, describing teacher practice.
Just to clarify: The classrooms where I conducted my studies were all English immersion classrooms with some support in children’s home language. I just want to make sure that I’m being clear that nearly all of the teacher talk was in English. Research has shown that English immersion preschool is not ideal for young Emergent bilinguals. Ideally, the classrooms would all be in the children’s home language or at least bilingual. But these are the constraints of most Head Start classrooms.
But before I go more deeply into the study, let me take a step back and share some of the research around playful learning, playtime, and language development.

2. [4 clicks] There is abundant literature on the benefits of play for children’s social, cognitive, and emotional well-being; as I said, much of it is theoretical or observational rather than experimental. And it’s tough to effect change with what we know in our gut, or even with what we observe, though—we often need strong empirical evidence in order to speak to policy-makers.
This feels like an important moment, though, since we’re seeing BOTH a focus on academic rigor in preschool AND a resurgence in interest in the benefits and importance of play for children. The work I’ve done to describe and quantify playtime is at that intersection of rigor and play, because I subscribe to the camp of research that play and learning are entirely compatible.
[I also worry that playtime is going to be cut out of the Head Start day altogether, and well-facilitated playtime will be something available only to children whose parents can afford private preschool.]

3. “Four decades of research and practice offer unequivocal evidence for the critical importance of play for children’s development”(Zigler & Bishop-Josef, 2006)
Ed Zigler’s camp.
BUT. . .there remains some skepticism about the benefits to academic readiness that play confers. In other words, there are folks who contend that play is not compatible with academic outcomes.

4. Today’s Session Play, Playful Learning, and DLLs
Study 1: The PLOT Study
Study 2: The Teacher Talk Study
Conclusions, Implications, and Future Research

5. Play is. . . intrinsically motivating and child- directed (Levy, 1978)
pleasurable and exploratory (Isenberg & Quisenberry, 1988)
free from unnecessary constraints on time and engagement (Lillemyr, 2009)
Play is notoriously difficult to pin down and define. For the purposes of my dissertation, I use the work of Levy, Isenberg& Quisenberry, and Lillemyr and see as the essential elements of play that it is: intrinsically motivating and child-directed, pleasurable and exploratory, and free from unnecessary constraints on time and engagement. That is—engagement with materials and peers.

6. Play and language development
Elements of play are positively associated with language development
Relevant, authentic conversations and individualized talk [Dickinson & Smith, 1994; Snow, 1991]
Uptake, repetition, and nuance [Clark, 2008; Nagy & Scott, 2000]
Play may be helpful for DLLs’ language development [Goldenberg, Hicks, & Lit, 2013]
We know that Playful Learning is associated with cog, social, and emotional development; in other words, the development of the whole child.
We also know that play and language development are positively associated. For example, when children engage in relevant, interesting discussions, they are more likely to retain vocabulary; also, Clark found that children begin to take up and use new vocabulary even with the first exposure.
We have speculated that play may be particularly important for DLLs’ language development, but that research base is still in its infancy.

7. Please chat with a colleague
Why might playtime be particularly beneficial for DLLs?
What challenges might we face in implementing policy that advocates for playtime in DLLs’ classrooms?
Before I move in to talking about Playful Learning as a construct, let’s take a minute to think about play and DLLs in preschool.

8. Playful Learning
Let me describe what scholars like Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Roberta Golinkoff, Laura Berk, and Dorothy Singer mean by playful learning:
PL is an approach to education that incorporates the elements of play I’ve already described (child-directed, intrinsically motivating, exploratory, unhindered) with much of what we know to be good practice for teachers (engaging children, gentle guidance, rich discussions)
(e.g. Fisher, Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, Singer, and Berk, 2011; Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, Berk, and Singer, 2009; Lillard, Lerner, Hopkins, et al., 2013)

9. Playful Content Lessons
Playful Learning
Playful Content Lessons
Ample Free Choice Time
Importantly, PL includes BOTH Content Lessons AND purposefully facilitated ample free choice time, and the Head Start classrooms I visited all have structures in place for content lessons and for free choice time.

10. Playful Content Lessons
Playful Learning
Playful Content Lessons
In playful content lessons teachers have particular content-based objectives in mind: Students might spend some circle time listening to teachers talk about and then looking at and learning about shapes, for example, and then have opportunities to engage in activities involving shapes, usually at learning centers. There would be choices, opportunities to move and to work with friends of their choosing, and ample time to explore and experiment. That would be a playful content lesson.

11. Playful Learning Ample Free Choice Time
Free choice time, on the other hand, is not objective-driven, nor is there that teacher-directed lesson upfront: Rather, at a different time during the day, children would be free to choose from a wide variety of materials, activities, and playmates. They are provided unhindered time and space to play, create, and imagine. It is nearly entirely child-driven.
BUT. . .teachers are still active facilitators. While being mindful and respectful not to undermine the play, teachers may gently guide a child to a developmentally appropriate activity, purposefully place out materials and invitations, and, engage children in rich discussions about what the children are doing.

12. Playful Content Lessons
Playful Learning
Playful Content Lessons
Ample Free Choice Time
**Playful learning is an approach to preschool that supports cognitive development while still maintaining PLAY in the preschool day.
There’s some research describing these playful content lessons, but almost no research describing free choice time.
So for my first study, I worked to operationalize Playful Learning Free Choice time: What does it look like when teachers do it well?
All Head Start classrooms are currently measured by an observation tool called the Classroom Assessment Scoring System, the CLASS, which was developed by Bob Pianta and his colleagues at the University of Virginia. It is a strong tool that’s been validated in thousands of classrooms, and it captures Playful Learning in a general way. But it doesn’t capture everything that is important during that playful learning Free Choice Time.
--Because interested in particular slice of the preschool day that wasn’t being adequately captured by current tools, I ended up developing a tool—Playful Learning Observation Tool [or PLOT]--intended to capture and measure differences during Free Choice Time in particular.

13. 5 Categories, 24 Elements of Playful Learning Observation Tool [PLOT]
The PLOT measures 5 aspects of playful learning free choice time, multiple elements in each aspect
The aspects are : STRUCTURES, AFFECT/ENGAGEMENT, TALK/LANGUAGE, MATERIALS, and OPPORTUNITIES FOR DEVELOPMENT. A HOLISTIC score is also assigned to each observation
For example, 2 of the aspects are STRUCTURES and LANGUAGE
Like the CLASS, it’s a 7-point scoring system. It’s an 8-page rubric with descriptors of each element for low, medium, and high and with space for qualitative notes related to each of the elements. Before I give you a copy to look at, let me just quickly explain how it works.
--You have a copy of the PLOT in front of you
--5 Categories further broken into 24 elements
--Each element has a rubric with low, medium, high descriptors
--They are summarized here. Highlighted are the elements that differentiate the PLOT from the CLASS and make it a tool particularly useful for looking at free playtime.

14. Please chat with a colleague
How might the PLOT be updated, revised, or amended so it specifically addresses or targets DLLs?

15. Findings: Reliability/Validity of the PLOT
inter-rater agreement (>85% in 4 of 16 classrooms)
internal consistency (alphas >.7 for each category)
convergent validity (significant correlations CLASS scores)
construct validity (tool sanctioned by playful learning theorist)
high correlations among aspects
<CLICK> I achieved greater than 85% inter-rater agreement with another scorer in the 4 of the 16 classrooms we visited together.
<CLICK> Alphas were high, suggesting internal consistency of the elements within each aspect
<CLICK> The district was able to provide me with the CLASS scores for 12 of the 16 classrooms I observed in. There were significant correlations between the PLOT and CLASS scores.
<CLICK> And I had already ascertained some construct validity in talking with Kathy Hirsh-Pasek
<CLICK> High correlations among the aspects of PL I measured. This is a common phenomenon with classroom observation tools, and definitely worth digging in to a bit more
So what I found was that the instrument showed some initially acceptable construct and face validity and decent reliability across 2 scorers. This was not intended as a validation study, per se. Rather, I wanted to get a sense of whether the differences in teacher practice were able to be captured by an observation instrument in a consistent, non-random way.

16. Distribution of Holistic Classroom Scores
Number of Classrooms [N=16]
Relatively normal distribution of holistic scores across the 16 classrooms. Seemed like quite a wide range of practice for one district.
Saw classrooms where free choice time was what I described earlier—unhindered engagement with playmates and materials, discussions with the adults.
Other classrooms where what was happening was almost unrecognizable as FCT—very structured, close-ended craft activities. These teachers still called that block of time FCT, though.
PLOT Holistic Classroom Score [1-7 Scale]

17. Range of Playful Learning Practice [7-point scale]

18. Findings: Range of Practice—Talk/Language
Talk/Language had the largest range of practice, and knowing that research has shown teacher talk is important for children’s oral language development, I wanted to see what the talk and language differences were at the high and low ends of this distribution.

19. Research Question
What is the amount, the sophistication, and what are the types of language that teachers are providing during higher and lower Playful Learning playtimes?
Okay. . .to recap. . .so we know that play is important for children’s development, and we hypothesize that it may be particularly important for language development.
There is a wide range of how playtime is facilitated in this sample of Head Start classrooms, with that range being particularly wide for teacher language, so my next question was. . .What is the amount, the sophistication, and what are the types of language that teachers are providing during higher and lower Playful Learning playtimes?
As I mentioned, the children in my classrooms were all DLLs. Nearly all of the teacher talk is in English.
My initial intent was to code for what higher and lower English proficient children were receiving, but when I administered the Oral Language Assessment Inventory [OLAI], I discovered that the range wasn’t particularly meaningful—while there was some range of oral proficiency, all of the children scored a Level 1 on the 1-5 range.

20. Methods
Recorded all teacher language for 6 sessions of playtime in each of the 4 focal classrooms across 3 months
Calculated:
Words per minute
Rare Words per minute
Coded for length and type of teacher/child interaction

21. Findings: Amount of Teacher Talk
More words spoken, on average, per minute in higher PL classrooms. More total words, as well, across 12 observations in each type of classroom.

22. Findings: Sophistication of Teacher Talk
This chart is similar, but shows the RARE words that were spoken by the teachers.
--For RWPM, I used a study done in the 1980s that recorded the spontaneous oral language of 1st graders. Hopkins, Moe, and Rush found that just 309 words made up 80% of the oral language of first graders. So any word that was NOT on that list I designated as a “rare word”
--Clarification: by “rare words” I do not mean particularly complicated vocabulary. Often, it is the difference between a teacher approaching a child and saying, “Good job with that!” or saying, “I see you are cutting a yellow circle.” The first statement has no rare words; the second contains 3.” This is important, since we know that all of the children have have low English proficiency, and a lot of really rare words could be counterproductive.
--While that study hasn’t been replicated, it was interesting to find that 76% of the teachers’ words used in these 48 recorded observations were words directly from that list.
More rare words spoken, on average, per minute in higher PL classrooms. Also, more total rare words spoken.
So it’s not just that there’s more talk in the Higher PL classrooms; it’s that the talk itself is richer. And there is research demonstrating that exposure to more words and more rare words can be beneficial for language development.
But I also wanted to know how the teachers were using language and for what purposes. . .
So I coded the interactions between the teachers and children in those higher and lower playful learning classrooms, looking at the length and the type of interaction.

23. Talk Interactions Brief (1-3 teacher utterances)
Medium (4-8 teacher utterances)
Sustained (>8 teacher utterances)
I define a talk interaction as a teacher engaged with a child or small group of children with a joint locus of attention. An interaction could be brief—quick question, direction, or unsuccessful attempt to engage a child (3 or fewer teacher utterances.) Sustained interactions were more than 8 teacher utterances.

24. Findings: Length of Talk Interactions
An interaction could be brief—quick question, direction, or unsuccessful attempt to engage a child (3 or fewer teacher utterances.) Sustained interactions included more than 8 teacher utterances.
Knowing that there was more and more sophisticated talk in the Higher PL classrooms, it wasn’t surprising to find that there were more sustained interactions in the Higher PL classrooms.
In fact, more than twice as many of the 420 interactions I coded in Higher PL classrooms were sustained than in the 420 interactions I coded in the Lower PL classrooms
Similarly, there were fewer than half as many brief interactions in the Higher than the Lower PL classrooms.
So what comprised those interactions?

25. Talk Interactions Direct Question (close ended and no follow-up)
Inform
Discuss (teacher builds on child’s response)
As clarification,
Direct means that the teacher directed the child to do something
Question refers to close-ended question
Inform means that that the teacher provided information to the child
Discuss involved open-ended questions with responses that build on what the child has provided. For these analyses, an interaction could be coded as more than one type.

26. Findings: Types of Talk Interactions
There were more than three times as many interactions that included discussion in the higher than in the lower PL classrooms!
And there were just shy of half of the interactions that included directives in the Higher PL classrooms.
Interactions that included close-ended questioning and information were approximately equal in both types of classrooms.
In other words, the kinds of talk that teachers are engaging in with children were very different in the higher and lower playful learning classrooms.

27. <<If time, illustrate>>

28. Summary of Findings for Study 2
Considerable variation in amount, sophistication, and type of talk.
Higher playful learning playtimes include more language and more sophisticated language.
In higher playful learning classrooms, there are more long interactions and more discussions.
It is conceivable that these differences may lead to differences in language development.
There is considerable variation in teacher language across classrooms during playtime. This includes the amount and the sophistication of the talk, and the length and type of interaction.
On average, in higher playful learning playtimes, children are getting more language and more sophisticated language.
During playtime in higher playful learning classrooms, children are also getting considerably more long interactions and more discussions.
It is conceivable that these differences may lead to differences in language development.

29. Conclusions
Playful learning during free choice time is a construct that can be measured in reliable ways.
There is a considerable range of playful learning practice across classrooms.
That range of practice is associated with the amount, the sophistication, and the type of teacher talk.
Presumably, classrooms with (relevant and developmentally appropriate) discussions between teachers and children will be beneficial for DLLs.
<START HERE!> Granted, it was a small sample in just two counties in one state
Just two raters achieving agreement
No child outcome measures.
With those limitations in mind, I found that <read slide>

30. Implications and Future Research
More testing and refining of the PLOT instrument
Supporting the development of common understandings of free choice time
Supporting/developing teacher talk practices
Measuring child outcomes, particularly for DLLS
Working to maintain high quality
free choice time for all children
These findings warrant more testing and refinement of the PLOT instrument. There’s at least some evidence that it has some utility. Part of the reality of classrooms is that teachers tend to teach what’s being measured. This applies to how we teach as much as what we teach.
Which brings me to another implication, and that’s that it may be important to support the development of common understandings of the purpose and practice of Free Choice Time. I was told by teachers and administrators that unlike other parts of the Head Start day, there is very little professional development focused on free choice time. Something like the PLOT could be used as part of training to help teachers wrap their heads around what effective practice looks like during this time of the Head Start day.
Furthermore, this work showed that there seem to be really different kinds of talk associated with different instantiations of free choice time. Research has shown that teachers can learn to speak differently to and with their children, but they need support in this learning.
In addition, I think this study provides at least some initial evidence that free choice time doesn’t mean just one thing, and that there are likely more and less effective ways of doing free choice time. We need to understand child outcomes as a result of these different types of environments. My hunch tells me it matters for children whether they’re in a higher or lower playful learning environment, but this study did not provide evidence of that. One big puzzle would be what kinds of outcomes matter and how to effectively measure those outcomes.
Finally, I think we need to take advantage of this peculiar moment in history (where there’s an interest in play AND a focus on academic outcomes) to make sure that parents, teachers, administrators, the media, policy makers, researchers know that play and learning are entirely compatible. We need to continue to work to maintain high quality free choice time for all children.

31. References
Fisher, K., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R.M., Singer, D.G. Berk, L. (2011). Playing around in school: Implications for learning and educational policy. In A. Pellegrini (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of play. NY: Oxford University Press,
Goldenberg, C., Hicks, J., & Lit, I. (2013). Teaching young English learners. In D. R. Reutzel (Ed.), Handbook of research-based practice in early education (pp ). NY: Guilford Press.
Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R. Berk, L., & Singer, D. (2009). A mandate for playful learning in preschool: Presenting the evidence. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lillard, A. S., Lerner, M. D., Hopkins, E. J., Dore, R. A., Smith, E. D., Palmquist, C. M. (2013). The impact of pretend play on children’s development: A review of the evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 139, 1, 1-34.
Nagy, Z. & Scott, (2000). Vocabulary processing. In M. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, P.D. Pearson, & R. Barr (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (Vol. 3, pp ). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

32. Questions? Thank you for attending today’s presentation
Presenter contact information:
Judy Hicks Paulick

35. Focal Classroom Demographics

36. Hopkins, Moe, & Rush (1982) List of 309 Words that Made up 80% of First Graders’ Speech