Learning Language Through Plays in Preschool
Preschoolers who watch, perform, or create their own plays actively engage in language learning during an actual live experience. Through presenting a play to an audience, preschoolers can enjoy the different meanings of a story, recite a favorite poem or short rhymed verse, create dialogue for clever puppets, and practice the new sounds and words from learned songs or text. Later they can deliver the learning again during class time or future repeat performances.
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Stories Build Language Development
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Reading is the foundation for language learning. Stories are the foundations for daily language development in young children. It is developmentally appropriate for toddlers to have adults point to a picture book and say, ̶0;doggie̶1; and offer a spontaneous dog story. However, preschoolers need more content in their stories to support language learning at deeper levels. Plays offer that opportunity through repetitive, engaging and meaningful language practice that can be easily created by pulling dialogue from a favorite books and telling a verbal story then presented in a live audience format. By assigning small parts of each story for preschoolers to master, language learning is both initiated and expanded.
Language Is Also a Learning Tool
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Repetition of language reinforces learning. Plays for preschoolers offer valuable repetition of the same sounds, words, verses, songs or poems that builds language-learning confidence. Psychology theorist Vygotsky identified private speech and language as a tool that helps preschoolers gain knowledge. For example, a preschooler buttoning his jacket might say, ̶0;First I pull the button and hole together. Then I push the button into the hole.̶1; This inner language is then repeated with every button the child tackles, an inner reassuring voice or tool that supports a learner̵7;s mission. The repetition of new words during play practice delivers the same kind of language understanding.
Singing in Plays
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Singing builds brain connections. When preschoolers perform a song for their audience, there is typically a lot of action that is constructed for that performance to show the language in physical ways. For example, when singing, ̶0;Row, row, row your boat,̶1; preschoolers can pantomime the action of rowing a boat. This association of words to their physical meanings, using a harmonic tone, delivers a greater level of brain connection and knowledge forging. The learning will also last because it becomes part of the child̵7;s personal experience.
Performance
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Performance solidifies learning. Performing lets children access the language knowledge they have learned. Preschoolers who practice play dialogue, learn the correct way to pronounce text, understand the meanings of new words they learn, present that language in a creative form like a poem, a song or a story, and gather all that ability together to share their performance with others. The personal process of using theater to help learn language can lead to huge academic gains as well as a lot of enjoyment.
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