Authentic Writing in a Play Based Classroom

This term Ruma Rua has been struggling with writing, they do not seem quite ‘ready’ to either form the letters or
form the sentences. After looking for some research on writing with junior children, I came across this article written
by Tara O’Neil - Writing authentically through play. From a book by New Zealand practitioners called Reflections on
Practice, it looked at how we learn and was backed up by literature from many different people such as Sir Ken
Robinson, Nathan Mikaere-Wallis, Peter Gray, Canadian Council of Learning and more. It also looked into the role
of the teacher in a play based environment and how we can assess children - especially those who do not yet meet
level 1 of The New Zealand Curriculum - which is something that has been a concern of mine too. Why are children
expected to be at the level of the beginning of the curriculum just because they have started school? That is like
expecting all babies to be born the same height and weight! It is unrealistic and sets our youngest and most
vulnerable learners up to fail!

Several things stood out to me in this article and made me stop and take a moment to think about the questions that
were making me doubt my beliefs and my practice. Firstly, what is writing for? Essentially it is to communicate with
others. The tools of writing if you will are not just words but “signs, symbols, maps, plans, numbers, musical notation,
charts, models, pictures and language” (Dolya, 2010, p.8). This made me stop and think is it really important that a
child write sentence about their weekend or some imaginary thing they think up? Is it just as important to make marks
on a page, draw pictures, and make signs for their shop or puppet show? I felt further justified in my conviction for having a play based classroom by the statement that “Muscles needed for writing and connections between the brain
and body are strengthened through play. Likewise, social dramatic play is particularly powerful for establishing brain
pathways of oral language.” It is more important to give opportunities for pretend play to build up their oral language
skills so they have something they want to say that is authentic and meaningful. This was further confirmed later in
the reading where O’Neil stated “the authentic context for writing,... provides a rich practice ground for many skills
needed to support writing.  ...Joy and skill in writing are more likely if writing builds from and inner urge and self-defined
purpose.”

Secondly, how can I as a teacher support my learners to get to that first level of The New Zealand Curriculum without
explicitly teaching them writing? This question was partly covered by my first question but to add to that, the teacher’s
role is not to plan and test but to observe and document then back plan. (I have discovered an amazing app called
simple map which is a mind map application where I can add children’s interests, the learning and comments they
have made in a visual way which I am really enjoying using.) It is important to notice what is happening and respond
to it rather than direct their learning for example, if there are a group of children focussed on playing shops, bring in
extra shop resources, sign making materials, dress up clothing extra to facilitate their play and interact with them
enhancing their oral language skills and adding ideas. Talk about their trips to the shops about what signs they have
seen and what was on them and support them to replicate what they want to.

It is also important to think about what stage the child is at developmentally. There is a natural developmental order
for learning just as there is for most things so this needs to be looked at carefully. “There’s no rush to learn to write,
and it shouldn’t be formally taught until the age of seven. ...children’s brains are still developing…” Nathan Wallis
argues. O’Neil states that “Play gives opportunity for the development of large and small body muscles. Muscles
needed for writing and connections between the brain and body are strengthened through play.” She also states
that role playing and other group dramatic play helps build strong brain pathways for oral language. Play is also a
great motivator and gives children experiences and the urge or desire to put pen to paper. If they are motivated they
will want to keep going even if they find it hard. “Dolya, 2010 says: “When involved in play, children’s concentration
and application to the task are much greater than in academically-directed activities contrived by the teacher” (p.10).”

Finally, I wonder how we can get the ‘required’ writing samples without having to do formal writing tests when some
of our learners can’t even hold a pencil. Early in the article Sir Ken Robinson is quoted as saying :Creativity is as
important today in education as literacy and we should treat it with the same status.” This is a very powerful statement
for those of us who are advocating for a play based environment with children as the focus. The first thing O’Neil said
was to “notice writing develop” as she also, was trying to find a way to stop teachers having to mark writing samples.
She worked together with a senior ECE teacher to produce a list of foundation skills that the children would need prior
to Level 1 of The New Zealand Curriculum drawing on several different resources including “Perceptual Motor
Programme (Bulluss & Coles, 2007), Te Whariki (2017), a phonics programme (Sorryl, n.d.), information about writing
stages from 0 through to 7 (Butkus, 2011) and my own collection of thinking skills.” O’Neill used this list to help identify
the preliminary writing skills used in play so “we focus on students; acquisition of writing skills at developmentally
appropriate stages.” They used the list as a continuum from foundation to level 1a and checked it each term. The
great
thing about this list is that it included not only physical - especially pencil to paper - skills but oral-language skills too.

In the conclusion of the article O’Neil says she noticed a change in the behaviour she was seeing in the classroom
and “sensed a difference in the wellbeing of the children.” Those who had previously been absent regularly or had
difficulties concentrating or sitting still were now engaged and turning up every day. She said as they noticed children
were ready, “anywhere between 5.5 and 7 years of age”, they would take groups to learn writing skills and that “most
went from writing in play to writing half a page at a time within days.” At her new school, she uses the continuum she
developed and supports the learning of the skills through workshops designed around the children’s interests. I agree
with what she says in that “learning through play isn’t about the play, it is about learning that is appropriate for young
learners. ...real learning can be seen when children are engaged in authentic contexts. Play is simply a developmentally
appropriate way of building an engaging and authentic community to learn in.” She states that play is about developing
self-regulation and self-confidence and this sets them up to be lifelong learners and it is our job as teachers to be
learners and make sure we are risk takers and happy to step out of our comfort zone to embrace the true principles
of ako and learn alongside our students. This is not the traditional teaching role in NZ classrooms but at this age
and the developmental stage of the students who are coming into our classrooms at 5 years of age, this is the kind
of teacher we need to become.