Clockwise from lower right,

facing page: a campground in

the classroom; counting with
Unifix cubes; traversing the
playground bars; circle time;
creating structures with blocks;
embodying the movement
in the words of a poem; in a
submarine at the Childrens
Museum in Dover.

Play: the Beginning of

Life-long Learning
Does a play-based approach in kindergarten serve children well as a foundation
for the more academically rigorous years ahead? When looking at the most recent
research about how children learn and what kind of skills are most needed for a
strong 21st century education, this question can be answered definitively, Yes.

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his January, the organizations

Defending the Early Years and
Alliance for Childhood issued a
major report, Reading Instruction in
Kindergarten: Little to Gain and Much
to Lose. This report pushes back on
the widespread beliefand emerging expectation through the Common
Core State Standards (CCSS)that
children must learn to read in kindergarten or earlier in order to be strong
readers and successful students when
older.
In fact, decades of research shows
that many children are not ready to
read in kindergarten, and greater longterm gains come from child-centered,
play-based programs than ones based
on teacher-driven instruction and standardized testing. Although children in
a play-based program may initially lag
behind in skills testing compared with
their peers in a more scripted, directinstruction program, a large study in
Germany found that by grade four the
former had surpassed the latter in all
areas measured.
Sant Bani has always taken a
research-based approach to early child-

hood education. In this, the School

has been guided by best practices
developed from research in cognitive
psychology and neuroscience, and
the advice of Master Kirpal Singh in
Toward the New Education, a foundational document for the Schools
approach to teaching: A child is the
center of creative life. It needs to be
opened as a flower is opened, gently, by
sympathy, not by force. Do not let the
child be imprisoned in the examination
machine; never let him be snubbed and
scolded.
As the focus of many kindergarten
classrooms has shifted to preparing
5-year-olds to, in the words of the
CCSS, Read emergent reader texts
with purpose and understanding, what
is being lost? Karen Gregg, Sant Banis
long-time kindergarten teacher, asks,
What are children not learning when
they are being taught to read before
they are ready? The complexity of
play engages higher-level thinking and
expands and integrates brain connections more than regimented activities.
Through play, children learn creative
thinking, persistence, to sustain posi-

tive relationships with others and form

an interest in learning about the world
around them. If missed, you cant
easily get the time back to teach these
foundational skills that children need
to be successful students.
Some parents are concerned about
whether the play-based approach in
kindergarten will serve their children
well as a foundation for the more academically rigorous years ahead. Nancy
Nager, professor of
Child Development at The complexity of play
Bank Street College of
Education, says this is a engages higher-level
false choice. In a New thinking and expands
York Times article
and integrates brain
of October 21, 2014,
she says, The core
connections more than
behavioral elements
regimented activities.
that drive college and
career readiness, many
of thempersistence, planning, the
ability to communicate and the capacity to collaboratehave their roots in
early childhood play. While grownups recognize that pretending helps
children find their way into the world,
many adults think of play as separate
21

Clockwise from left: recess

time on the playground; experimenting with snow and food
coloring on the sensory table;
poetry in the classroom; a child
reads a story she has written
herself; play with natural materials outdoors; first graders
shape beeswax figures while
listening to a story; a big smile.

from formal learning. The reality is

quite different. As they play, children
develop vital cognitive, linguistic,
social and emotional skills. They make
discoveries, build knowledge, experiment with literacy and math and learn
to self-regulate and interact with others
in socially appropriate ways. Play is
also fun and
interesting,
A highly trained teacher
which makes
creates a secure, supportive school a place
environment for children to where children
look forward to
build confidence in themspending their
time.
selves as learners.
What does
play-based literacy instruction look
like? At Sant Bani, Language Arts,
which includes spoken language as well
as reading and writing, is integrated
into each area of the curriculum. Letter recognition, sounds and formation
are taught and reinforced through
movement, games and constant exposure. Time is built into the schedule
for play, and an abundant supply of
open-ended materials (blocks, model22

ing clay, items from nature) engages

children in imaginative, self-directed
play that creates opportunities for children to tell stories and develops their
understanding of abstract symbols
(blocks can be houses or cars, a square
of fabric can be a lake or a cape) that is
critical to relating to the printed word.
Kindergarten students are read to by
the teacher, and by second graders
in a year-long partnership with that
class. Teachers also lead the students in
Story Telling/Story Acting, a process
developed by teacher and writer Vivian
Paley, where students dictate stories
developed during play which are then
acted out by others during group meeting time. The stories are then printed
and the players/writers illustrate and
read their own work.
A critical element to the success of
any play-based approach to early childhood education is the teacher. Creating
collaborative, responsive classrooms
where play is sustained during large
blocks of time is a skill for a teacher
and can be as complex as play itself. A
highly trained teacher creates a secure,

supportive environment for children

to build confidence in themselves as
learners and community members, and
fills the classroom with a rich variety
of oral and print language resources.
She or he carefully observes each child,
assessing their developmental level
and interacting with them individually
to facilitate their progress toward appropriate goals.
Sant Banis early childhood teachers
all have advanced degrees in education, and due to smaller class sizes (up
to 16 students), are able to provide
this individual attention. In addition,
children have immediate and frequent
access to outdoor play areas and natural landscapes. Master Kirpal Singhs
suggestion that every school should
be situated in a lovely spot of nature
is supported by extensive research into
the benefits of nature play: improved
motor skills, vision, creativity, focus,
sense of place and emotional wellbeing.
Karen Gregg says, Play produces
joy. And children learn more when
they are happy.

Good News for Play

In August 2014, Bank Street College of Education partnered
with the New York City Department of Education to launch
a Getting Ready for Pre-K professional development
institute in response to Mayor Bill de Blasios committment
to implement universal pre-kindergarten in NYC.
Karen Gregg, a Bank Street graduate, was one of the facilitators of the multi-day sessions to train 4,000 preschool
teachers in play-based education.
Ginia Bellafante of The New York Times writes, More and
more poor children will theoretically be taught as the
citys affluent children are, which is to say according to the
principles of immersive, play-based, often self-directed
and project-driven learning. There is hardly an elite, private
preschool in the city that doesnt align itself with the philosophies of Reggio Emilia, an educational model that arose in
Italy after World War II and gained prominence in the States
in the 1990s with the notion that children must have some
control over the course of their learning and must be given
a means to express the various languages they possess. Art,
music and imaginative play assume a significant role.

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