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Chapter4
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Introduction
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Stig Brostrm
Aarhus University, Denmark
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This chapter deals with childrens transition to school and play. The first
part focuses on transition and shows a number of problems deriving from
lack of continuity between preschool and school. One solution to these
problems is to create transition strategies and activities. Besides a number
of transition activities, the author argues for play as a pivot for successful
transition, with close attention to specific dialogical reading that precedes
play. Thus play is not seen as childrens own free-flow play, but as an educational activity in which the preschool teacher has an active role.
Transition Concepts and Strategies
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presents problems, and for that reason practitioners, researchers, and policymakers focus on this issue. The reason to support childrens transition
has at least two coherent dimensions: (1) to support each childs best interests and (2) to make the best conditions for all childrens school success
and lifelong learning.
The word transition is rather open. It deals with border crossing, a physical movement from one physical context to another. Dunlop and Fabian
(2002) define transition as being the passage from one place, stage, state,
style or subject to another over time (p.148). Related specifically to early
childhood, educational transition can be defined as the time between the
first visit in the new educational context and the final settling in (Fabian,
2004; Kagan & Neuman, 1998).
During childrens first six years they engage in many transition experiences, and most children will be involved in a number of vertical forms of
transitions: (1) From being safe and secure in their family, with well-known
rhythm and routines, and with a secure attachment to their close adults,
infants may enter their first educational setting, the crche or preschool
(Clark, 2007; Dalli, 2002; Griebel & Niesel, 2002; Kienig, 2002). (2) During
the next five years, many preschool children transit from one age group
to another. (3) At the age of five or six, children experience the most extensive educational transition, namely the transition to school (Brostrm,
2002a, 2003, 2007; Dockett & Perry, 2007; Dunlop, 2002; Margetts, 2002).
(4) In combination with the transition to school, almost at the same time
children enter into leisure-time center or after-school program.
Besides these vertical transitions, two forms of horizontal transition must
be added: first, the daily transition where children twice a day move from
their home to crche or preschool and back again. Via this transition children experience quite different routines, values and patterns of interactions. Second is the daily transition from home to leisure-time center and
to school and, later on, the same travel back (Johansson, 2007).
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Because children have experiences with transition from their early years,
one might suggest that they have accumulated transition competencies,
making them transition experts. However, international research on starting school suggests that moving from preschool to school can be challengingand for some children traumatic. This may be the case especially for
children with less-than-optimal circumstances, such as children with special education needs and children from dysfunctional families (Brostrm,
2002a; Napier, 2002; Shore, 1998).
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Children with such views are at high risk for school-related anxiety and
nervousness. This can drain childrens energy to such an extent that they
cannot mobilize their existing skills and talents when they enter school. Research has shown that problems at the start of school can pursue children
over many years of school life (Ladd & Price, 1987). For that reason, in the
next section, some possible transitions activities are described.
Transition Activities
Because childrens transition to school can be overloaded with changes, professionals have important roles in supporting children to make a
smooth transition to schoolto feel suitable in school. This is to feel secure,
relaxed, and comfortable in the new environment; to have a feeling of wellbeing and belonging.
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Research on school start shows that children who feel relaxed and welladjusted in school are much more likely than children who do not feel
well adjusted to experience school success beyond preschool. Conversely,
academic, social, and emotional difficulties in the first year in school persist
into later life (Ladd & Price, 1987).
A smooth and successful transition requires attention to several related
elements (Brostrm, 2002a):
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These related elements combine the most important areas in the childs
life before and after starting school and support the transition. They also
prompt a number of transition strategies (Dunlop & Fabian, 2002; Neumann, 2002):
An important strategy to ease childrens transition is to build pedagogical
and program continuity between preschool and school. Most European countries have decided national curricula or frameworks for early childhood
education and care, outlining general aims and objectives, which are in
accordance with aims, goals, and objectives described in school curricula.
However, though there is expressed a continuity at the rhetorical level, often this continuity is not expressed in everyday life in preschool and school.
A second strategy is the existence of a superior leading forum that expresses leadership and the will to organize from an administration level. This
includes both strategies and initiatives undertaken by the municipality administration and the head of the school, together with the leadership of
the connected preschools and leisure-time centers in order to construct
the means for cooperation, to provide shared meetings, and to give equal
working conditions and joint education. Following on from this, there is a
need for structural continuity. This is difficult when policy and provision for
children in the preschool years and children attending school fall under
different administrative auspices (Neumann, 2002). However, some countries, including Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, have managed to combine responsibility for early childhood education and care and compulsory
schooling, in order to combine care and learning, and to realize the idea
of lifelong learning.
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Building Bridges
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Theory of Play
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From a cultural-historical understanding of play, it is assumed that important changes take place in the preschool childs psyche through play,
which paves the way for the childs transition to a new level of development
(Leontev, 1981). Play activity has a number of benefits. Through interaction with peers and adults, the child deals with signs and symbols in order
to represent the culture. Signs and symbols also influence the development
of higher mental functions (Leontev, 1978; Vygotsky, 1978).
When children enter role-play (symbol-play, pretend play, make-believe
play, sociodramatic-play), they make use of symbols. They replace persons
and objects from reality with a symbolic representation. A stick symbolizes a
gun or a sword, and they themselves pretend to be a policeman, a mother, or
a superhero from the outer space.
Vygotsky states that play is characterized by the fact that in play a child
creates an imaginary situation (1978, p.93). The child is able to symbolize
the reality. According to Vygotsky, the reason for this is motivation. The child
strives to do what the adults are doing. The child wants to drive Mums car or
fly to the moon in a spacecraft. This is not possible, but the child can fulfill
this desire through play. [T]he preschool child enters in an imaginary, illusory world in which the unrealizable desires can be realized, and this world is
what we call play (Vygotsky, 1978, p.93).
In play, children are able to master ideas and to take more advanced actions than is possible for them in non-play situations. The child raises the
demand on himself and brings himself into the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978), which starts new processes of development. According to Vygotsky, not only will the independent actions in the zone of proximal
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development support new developments, but also the childs imitations have
a similar effect. The child is able to imitate actions that go beyond his or her
possibilities, but not without limits.
However, the optimistic idea that play has a leading and developmental
function (Leontev, 1978) has been over-interpreted, and the (often misunderstood) phrases: in play a child always behaves beyond its average age
and play always leads to a more advanced level of development have been
discussed and criticized. For example, van der Veer and Valsiner (1991) argue
that play does not in itself contribute to the childs development. From their
point of view, play has a development potential only when the play environment has the potential to challenge children to cross their zone of proximal
development. This calls for social interaction where the preschool teacher
or other adult plays an active role, challenges the child, and provokes him or
her to create new meanings and understandings. Such a form of play goes
beyond the traditional role-play and is called border play (Leontev, 1981).
Based on the above understanding of play I will present some research
on dialogical reading and childrens language acquisition and development. The idea is to connect play and dialogical reading in order to construct a play method which crosses the zone of proximal development and
can serve as a tool for all childrens successful transition for school.
Play as Pivot for Successful Transition
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1975). For example, if children are asked to repeat a sentence that is more
difficult than they are able to manage, in order to make sense, they will
integrate what they have heard and adjust the sentence at their own level.
Based on this knowledge, Whitehurst and colleagues set up the CIP hypothesis, Comprehension, Imitation and Production, to express the idea: First
the child is able to understand the word without being able to produce the
word or sentence; at the next step, the child is able to imitate the word or
sentence via a selective imitation (that is not an exact reproduction); and
finally the child independently manages the word or sentence, and she is
able to play with the word or sentence in new contexts.
Dialogical reading is based on the assumption that childrens language
acquisition is affected by three techniquesnamely, practice, feed-back,
and scaffoldingin order to construct a zone of proximal development
(Vygotsky, 1978). This is in accordance with the work of Tomasello (1999)
who shows that childrens communicative competencies are embedded in
cultural learning. Via general sociocultural skills like imitation, shared attention, categorization, symbolic thinking, and understanding of other people
as intentional persons, the child becomes able to appropriate cultural tools
and symbols that are used in the childs specific world (Vygotsky, 1978).
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Many play researchers and preschool teachers have interpreted these dimensions to mean that play must be a matter for children without adult influence. Thus, free-flow play has been a hallmark of play in early childhood
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When frame-play, aesthetic theme play, and drama-play are connected to dialogical reading, children and the preschool teacher plan and play together,
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and the preschool teacher takes an active and challenging role called teacher in role (Lindqvist, 1995). On the basis of common experiences from
the story, they decide a general theme (for example, What happens in the
witchs forest?), or they invite loved characters from childrens literature
into their playfor example, Pippi Longstocking (Lindqvist, 1995).
The concept frame is used with reference to the importance of the
imaginary play situation (Elkonin, 1980). In role-play, the imaginary play
situation often refers to a situation with only narrow limits. But creating a
frame-play with older preschool children makes it possible to generate an
extended and common imaginary play situation, a shared frame the children can use for a long time.
When the children make plans for the play, and also during the play,
the content, or in Batesons (1972) words, the text, is expressed. Simultaneously, the children give signals about how to interpret the message, or
the context. These signals help the play participants to understand each
other. According to Bateson (1972), the establishment of the context is a
psychological frame. In play with older preschool children, the psychological frame is usually clear. Its function is to include certain messages and actions and to exclude others. A psychological frame has the same function as
a picture frame: It tells the viewer what he or she should notice. The frame
defines the context.
In this new form of play, the childrens consciousness of the psychological frame is strengthened through the establishment of a real frame. For example, they have read a book about a child going to school, and then they
construct the frame together: They turn the classroom into a school. Supported by this physical frame, children and adults imagine themes, roles,
and actions. In other words, they share a fantasy, which they collectively
construct and modify (Fine, 1983, p.12). The frame-play contains several
elements decided in advance by the children and the adults. Because of the
time interval between reading the book, formulation of the plan, and realization of the play, the roles, rules, and actions are prepared thoroughly. In
this way, the frame-play is more organized and more purposeful than roleplay. As well, the motives of the two kinds of play are different.
In a form similar to frame-play, Lindqvist has created aesthetic theme
play. With reference to Vygotskys (1971) book The Psychology of Art,
Lindqvist (1995) argues for an open and dynamic approach to play, where
childrens imagination and creativity are stressed. Lindqvist states that drama is linked to play more directly than is any other form of art: Children
can compose the text, improvise the roles and prepare the scenic accessories: scenery and costumes, which they can paint, stick on, cut out and joint
together (1995, p.53).
Together with a group of children, Lindqvist creates a play world. She
introduces children to specific child literature and sets up a themefor
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example, Alone in the big, wide world. Loneliness is one of the most important existential questions, especially for small children who have to leave
their parents to go to preschool every day (Lindqvist, 1995, p.73).
From this starting point, children and the teachers create a play-world
that can last for weeks or months. The idea is to move between reality and
imagination and to establish a creative and playful atmosphere and at the
same time become familiar with the chosen theme.
Very close to Lindqvists aesthetic theme play, Baumer et al. (2005) describe a form of play named drama-play. Here three elements are integrated:
Explorative play experimenting with roles, actions, and dressing-up
Dramatization involving the preschool teachers and focused on
creating a product, a story
Reflection via dialogue, a kind of philosophical conversation with
children
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Conclusion
When children are involved in the above forms of play, they not only have
fun, but they are also challenged to reflect on their play and to discuss what
and how they play. Thus, one might argue that such play activities pave the
way for the development of childrens learning motives. Achieving a learning motive enables the child to go beyond passive learning and to become
an active learner. In addition, and as earlier mentioned, data relating to
childrens language acquisition and reading skills in grade one show that
children involved in play sessions acquire higher scores compared with the
control group (Baumer et al., 2005). A play-based approach seems to hold
potential as a possible transition strategy as regard to creating a so-called
transitory activity system, which is a new psychological structure. In other
ways, the use of dialogical reading and play both in preschool and in the
first year(s) in school might contribute to the construction of an advanced
form of school readiness: the establishment of learning motive.
Besides the development of a transitory activity system, that is, a sense
of transition in childrens mind, the dialogical reading and play approach
might be a tool for realizing the recommended transitions activities. Physical discontinuity can be reduced when children realize that the school
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Author Queries:
On manuscript p.2, you cite Kienig, 2002, but in your references the authors name
is spelled Kiening. Also in that same paragraph, you cite Margetts, 2002, but
in your references you have it spelled Margretts. Please check both spellings
and make the citations and references match.
On ms p.6 and the following pages, you cite Neumann, 2002, but in your references
the authors name is spelled Neuman. Please check the spelling.
In your references, please double check the issue number for Napier, J. (2002).
That seems like a very high number for an issue number.
Please list all editors, not et al. for Vygotsky, L. S. (1978).