Explain why play is important to the holistic development of the young child. Explain how and why children’s play changes over the first six years of life. Include examples to support your explanation.
To begin this essay, I have asked myself ‘what is play?’ The Oxford English Dictionary cites many definitions for the word ‘play’. One can watch a play, play truant, play up, play football, play cards or play an instrument. Child development theorists have published a great many works on play and its impact on child development. Hutt et al (1989) (as quoted in Wood & Attfield (2005)) argued that play is “a jumbo category that encompasses a multiplicity of activities, some of which are conducive to learning, but many of which are not.” Wood & Attfield (2005) wrote that “play involves a wide range of behaviours, have multiple meanings for both children and adults and can be regarded as serious or trivial. It can be highly motivated or just plain messing about”. Moyles (2005) believed play to be “… a process which, in itself, will subsume a range of behaviours, motivations, opportunities, practices, skills and understandings …” For the purposes of this essay, I am focussing on the enjoyable activities which children undertake freely and spontaneously, alone or with their peers which brings pleasure, fulfilment and development. I will endeavour to explain how play is important to the holistic development of the young child and also how and why play changes during the first six years of his/her life. So what does play look like? Given the various theorists’ writings quoted above, it would appear that the word itself is almost impossible to define, but Mari Guha (1996, p56 (as quoted in MCI Module 2) wrote that “Play exists, we know it when we see it, we know it when we do it”. Each element of play has its own characteristics and impact on the development of