Handbook of psychology volume 7 educational psychology

Learning and Teaching in Early Childhood Education: Art, Literacy, Music, and Play

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they sing less familiar songs out of tune. That may be be-

cause they are better able to concentrate their listening, audi-

ation, and vocal-production abilities on the music aspects of

the song rather than the text, a characteristic that seems to be

true of children who possess low to average music aptitude

(Gouzouasis, 1987). Children seem to benefit most from

singing songs without words because an emphasis on learn-

ing the words of the song can distract and detract from their

attention to the music content. As a child’s language skills

develop, song texts (i.e., lyrics) seem to interfere less with

vocal development. A mixture of songs with and without

words should be of benefit to older children (Levinowitz,

1987). Parents, caregivers, and teachers may still teach their

favorite songs, but they can teach them using a neutral sylla-

ble instead of text. The ability of a child to sing one or more

short phrases of a song, with or without text and in tune, is

evidence that he or she has emerged from the tonal babble

stage.

Music Acquisition and Language Acquisition

Although music is not a language, it is acquired in a manner

and context similar to those in which language is learned

(Gouzouasis & Taggart, 1995). The mechanisms that a young

child uses to produce sounds are the same for both music and

language. The throat, mouth, nose, lungs, and diaphragm are

used in a variety of ways to produce meaningful music and

linguistic sounds. For both music and language, sounds may

vary in loudness, pitch, duration, and stress. When sound (or,

technically, phones) in the form of vowels and consonants

(segmentals), is organized into morphemes—the smallest

meaning-based unit in language—the sound is expressed as a

linguistic medium (Jakobson, 1968). Similarly, when sound in

the form of pitches and durations is organized into tonal and

rhythm patterns, it may be considered a music medium

(Gouzouasis, 1987). Young children are encouraged to pro-

duce linguistic sounds from the time they enter our world

through what psycholinguists have described as motherese, a

reciprocal and contingent interaction between parent and

infant (Broen, 1972; Cross, 1977; Newport, Gleitman, &

Glietman, 1977; Phillips, 1970; Snow, 1977). Motherese is

characterized by language that is simplified and limited in vo-

cabulary, with words pronounced slowly with careful and ex-

aggerated enunciation and in a repetitive manner. Motherese

makes use of three different components of language: seman-

tics (vocabulary), syntax (the predictability of sentence pat-

terns), and pragmatics (the social and instrumental uses of

language). Although there appears to be a similar babbling

and mimicking stage in music, most young children are not

exposed to a corresponding music variant of motherese

(Holohan, 1984), perhaps because a shared system of seman-

tics, syntax, and pragmatics has not yet been worked out

between parent and infant.

Research has shown, however, that the music babble stage

has at least two parts, rhythm and tonality, which seem to op-

erate independently of each other (Gordon, 1990). Although

the music babble stage can last essentially from birth until the

child is 6 or 7 years old, some children have been observed to

leave the babble stage completely as early as 24 months, de-

pending on their music aptitude and environmental influ-

ences. A child can still be engaged in tonal babble after he or

she is out of rhythm babble, and vice versa. On their own,

children may babble by singing short patterns and experi-

menting (i.e., playing) with their voices. Children who bab-

ble on a tonal level seem to be singing in a monotone; that is,

it centers in a narrow range around one pitch. The songs that

such children sing are often unrecognizable to an adult, and

the children may be unaware that their singing is different

from that produced by adults. Although tonal babble may

sound amusical to an adult, it should be encouraged through

parental play and imitation that can begin as soon as an infant

begins to produce pitched sounds (Stark, 1977; Stark, Rose,

& McClagen, 1975). Many children who babble early and

often tend be identified as those who learn to sing with the

music syntax of an adult earlier than children who babble

considerably less. 

When a child is at the stage of using tonal babble, rhythm

babble, or both, all music instruction should be informal

(Gordon, 1990). Children who emerge from the tonal babble

stage are able to audiate music with tonal syntax and are able

to audiate and sing music with a sense of tonality—with a

sense of how patterns are organized. They learn to sing what

they audiate and to audiate what they sing (Gordon, 1990). In

essence, they learn to coordinate their listening (perception)

of music, their audiation (conception), and their vocal pro-

duction of music (through their breathing, diaphragm, and

vocal chords) in order to sing with a sense of tonality.

Play and Music Play

In many ways babble is an elemental form of play in music.

Play, imagination, and creativity are naturally rooted in

music activities in early childhood. In fact, one may consider

music itself as a form of play. Humans play music. Young

children play in a variety of activities while listening to

music, and they play musically in a variety of contexts—with

their voices, with their bodies, with props, and with music in-

struments. Observational research reveals that children spon-

taneously accompany their play with music. It is a simple

form of multitasking, in that young children possess the

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abilities to attend to more than one activity while engaged in

conscious and unconscious music making. Music play may

be child initiated or caregiver initiated. Both forms are

equally as diverse, rich, and valuable in learning. Moreover,

music play may occur in both structured and unstructured and

formal and informal settings (Gouzouasis, 1991, 1994). An

understanding of the multifaceted relationships between play

and music is central to both theories of music acquisition

and learning. Moorehead and Pond (1981), Pond (1978), and

Littleton (1999) provided brilliant insight to this topic, which

sadly has been neglected by education researchers and

psychologists.

Concluding Thoughts on Music in Early

Childhood Education

A child who is developmentally delayed in music learning de-

serves the same type of specialized instruction that a child re-

ceives who is developmentally delayed in some other aspect

of learning. Although it seems that various forms of media

made positive contributions to the proliferation of music in

the twentieth century, the developmentally detrimental as-

pects and negative influences of electronic and digital media

are too numerous to mention in this chapter (Gouzouasis,

2000). One may begin by scrutinizing the use of music in

children’s television programming and the lack of quality

music for young children on radio, recordings, and new forms

of digital media (e.g., the Internet). Much of what is marketed

as music for young children is actually developmentally ap-

propriate for older children and is composed to appeal to par-

ents and caregivers. Those factors are compounded by the

gross commercialization of early childhood music instruction

by corporate early childhood music trainers. From a perspec-

tive informed by both research and praxis, it is arguable that

any music instruction is better than none at all.

Play in Early Childhood Education

“The play of children may strike us at times as fragile and

charming, rowdy and boisterous, ingenuous, just plain silly,

or disturbingly perceptive in its portrayals of adult actions

and attitudes” (Garvey, 1977, p. 1). A plethora of scholars

have focused on these and other aspects of play’s characteris-

tic forms, which has led to a proliferation of theories to ac-

count for the origins, properties, and functions of these forms.

Thus, to begin to understand play, in all of its ambiguities, re-

quires multiple perspectives. This section provides a brief

review of selected theories and research on children’s play,

highlighting the paradoxical nature of the phenomenon.

Defining Play

Given the protean nature of play, defining it has proven prob-

lematic in the literature. In Western cultures, our understand-

ing of play has been influenced most significantly by shared

attitudes about what play is not; for example, “play is not

work, play is not serious, play is not productive—therefore,

play is not important” (Schwartzman, 1991, p. 214). Caillois

(1961) argued that “in effect, play is essentially a separate oc-

cupation, carefully isolated from the rest of life and generally,

is engaged in within precise limits of time and place” (p. 6).

Denzin (1980a), on the other hand, proposed that the world of

play is not distinct from everyday taken-for-granted reality,

but that it occurs in the immediately experienced here and

now. He also stressed that on an a priori basis play cannot be

distinguished from other everyday interactions, including

conversation and other activities of habit. Other definitions of

play include that play is pleasurable and enjoyable, has no ex-

trinsic goals, and is spontaneous and voluntary (Garvey,

1977); that play is free, separate, uncertain, unproductive,

governed by rules, and full of make-believe (Caillois, 1961);

and that play is a story that children tell themselves about

themselves (Geertz, 1973). The ambiguity of these defini-

tions reflects Western society’s struggle over how to concep-

tualize and value play.

Perspectives on Play

The diversity and ambiguity inherent in definitions of play

have resulted in broad conceptualizations of the forms and

functions of the phenomenon. These conceptualizations in-

clude play and cognition, psychoanalytic theory, educational

perspectives, play and literacy, and play as communication,

among others.

Traditional Theories of Play and Cognition.

Child de-

velopment theorists and researchers have attempted to ex-

plain the relationship between play and children’s cognitive

development. Two major theorists, Jean Piaget and Leo

Vygotsky, are perhaps the most noted for furthering our un-

derstanding of this relationship. Piaget (1962) believed that

children gain knowledge through the dual processes of as-

similation and accommodation. In assimilation, children take

in information from their experiences in the external world,

which is then integrated—assimilated—into existing mental

structures. Because children’s cognitive structures are often

inadequate to incorporate new information, they must learn

to change or accommodate their mental structures to better

accept information that is inconsistent with what they already

know. Typically, the opposing forces of assimilation and

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297

accommodation must work in tandem to reach a state of equi-

librium. The activity of play, however, is unique because

children are able to suspend reality and make the world adapt

to them; thus, assimilation assumes primacy over accommo-

dation (Saracho & Spodek, 1995). Piaget (1962) offered an

account of children’s unfolding cognitive process by identi-

fying three stages of play: sensorimotor, symbolic, and

games with rules. According to Piaget, each stage is part of a

sequential order in a child’s development. The first stage in-

volves repetitive actions that focus on physical activity. In the

second stage children use their symbolic abilities to create

and act out stories. The final stage involves the social

conventions of rules in games. The cross-cultural applicabil-

ity of Piaget’s theory, however, has been widely questioned

because his data are based primarily on observations of

White, middle-class children in Western society (see, e.g.,

Denzin, 1980b).

Vygotsky’s view of the relationship between play and

development differs significantly from Piaget’s. Vygotsky

(1976) argued that children’s play extends their cognitive de-

velopment. Specifically, children have a “zone of proximal

development,” a range of tasks between those that can be

completed independently and those that can be mastered only

through the mediation of adults or more competent peers.

Vygotsky believed that social interaction with more compe-

tent others is critical to a child’s cognitive development be-

cause it is the social context of socialization experiences that

shapes the thought processes of the young child. The empha-

sis on social interaction renders Vygotsky’s theory of play and

cognition applicable across social and cultural contexts.

Psychoanalytic Theories of Play.

Freud (1909) used

the pretend play of children as the medium for understanding

their conscious and unconscious wishes and fears. His theory

of play was based on the idea of internal conflict, and he pos-

tulated that play is cathartic for children because it allows

them to resolve negative feelings that may result from trau-

matic experiences. For instance, a child who has experienced

the trauma of an accident and must be taken to the hospital,

away from the safety and familiarity of home, may later play

and replay various hospital scenes in order to cope with feel-

ings of fear and pain. Other theorists have modified Freud’s

psychoanalytic theory and have related play to wish fulfill-

ment, anxiety, and ego processes (see Takhvar, 1988, for a

review). Erikson, in contrast, believed that children use play

to dramatize the past, present, and future, and to resolve

conflicts that they experience in each stage of their develop-

ment. Peller (1952) thought that children’s imitations of life

in their play were caused by feelings of love, admiration,

fear, and aggression.

Educational Perspectives on Play.

Since the early

nineteetn century, educators have observed the transition

from play to learning as children struggle to leave the world

of play at home to enter the world of learning at school. The

idea that play could be used as an articulation of teaching

practices and curricula was first put into practice by

Pestalozzi (1827), who believed that young children could be

educated to develop an inquiring approach to things and

words. He developed a pedagogy that encouraged the devel-

opment of children’s activity that was built on their potential

for moral and aesthetic discernment through reflection. 

It was Froebel’s modification of Pestalozzi’s theory, how-

ever, that became a medium for learning within the context of

schooling. Froebel proposed that “play is the purest, most

spiritual activity, and at the same time, typical of human life

as a whole—of the inner hidden natural life of [human be-

ings]” (Froebel, 1885, pp. 86–87). Froebel also suggested

that children attempt to maintain continuity in their lives by

bringing playful activity to their formalized learning experi-

ences. For example, he argued that play allows children to

achieve mastery over many aspects of themselves and their

environment through symbolic enactment of roles, explo-

ration of feelings, and interaction with others (Garvey, 1977).

Such themes are typically repeated during several play

episodes, which suggests that play is also cathartic for chil-

dren because it allows them to reexperience and thereby re-

solve or master a difficult situation. 

Froebel observed that the way in which children play

often reveals their inner struggles (Adelman, 1990) and that

play is often the primary means for children to learn social

expectations, attempt to understand culturally appropriate be-

haviors, struggle to learn to manage emotions, and gain ac-

cess to the techniques and skills of the world in which they

live (Michelet, 1986). According to Froebel, it is essentially

the child’s whole personality that can be seen to be involved

in play. He in fact contended that to understand the whole

child, it is crucial to understand that the inextricable link

between the inner and the outer parts of children’s play have

a visible and metaphysical aspect (Adelman, 1990). All of

Froebel’s activities and materials symbolized spiritual mean-

ings that he wanted children to gain (Saracho & Spodek,

1995), and the activities he developed were based on obser-

vations he made of German peasant children.

Maria Montessori (1965) also conceptualized her teaching

methods from the natural play activities of children. She de-

veloped her methods by bringing into the classroom materi-

als she was designing. She watched children play freely with

them and then abstracted what she considered the essential

elements of the play. Free play, however, was discouraged

after she decided how the materials could be used best

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(Montessori, 1965). Montessori contended that by using her

materials, “children could sharpen their abilities to gather and

organize their sensory impressions in order to better absorb

knowledge” (Saracho & Spodek, 1995, p. 130). 

It was the advent of the progressive kindergarten move-

ment, however, that provided the basis for contemporary

educational uses of play (Saracho & Spodek, 1995). The

movement was spearheaded by Dewey, who broke from

the colonial view that children should avoid play to become

more work oriented as they matured (Hartley & Goldenson,

1963). Dewey argued that play could be used to help children

construct their understanding of the world, and that through

play, children would learn to function at higher levels of

consciousness and action (Saracho & Spodek, 1995). Play in

Dewey’s terms, however, was still not a free activity. Instead,

teachers were to use play to create an environment to nurture

and enhance children’s mental and moral growth (Dewey,

1916).

Play and Literacy

Understanding the connection between children’s knowledge

and use of literacy and their play behavior is a focus of current

research. Research in the area of play and literacy is grounded

in the theoretical work of Piaget (1962) and Vygotsky (1976).

Both theorists compare the use of symbols in symbolic play

and literacy. Piaget described play as being largely assim-

ilative and viewed it as a reflection of the child’s cognitive

development. He maintained that during play children

demonstrate a mental distancing from what is real in the here

and now through their symbolic representations of people,

places, things, and actions. Moreover, he suggested that play

may serve as a catalyst for the child’s emerging literacy skills.

Vygotsky (1976) described how children represent literacy—

from the gesture to the written word—as a unified process. He

also believed that the social meaning of marks on a piece of

paper is rooted in how a child’s indicatory gestures are re-

sponded to during play. Unlike Piaget, however, Vygotsky

proposed that play is the primary factor in fostering children’s

development, liberating their thoughts from specific contexts

and from the literal meanings of concrete actions and uses of

objects. He also theorized that the ability to engage in sym-

bolic play enables children to develop a variety of represented

(symbolic) meanings that serve as the basis for later success

in literacy.

Other theorists have also hypothesized about the relation-

ship between play and literacy. Bruner (1983), for example,

advised that children’s early literacy development should be

an integral aspect of play-based experiences that support

children’s ideas, purposes, and social interpretations. He

cautioned, however, that structuring and organizing play for

educational purposes often results in “taking the action away

from the child” (p. 62). Others, such as Donaldson (1978)

and Heath (1983), pointed out that engaging in play and

learning to read and write demand similar cognitive abilities;

that is, through interacting with print, the learner moves from

episodes of the here and now to settings that are decontexual-

ized within text.

Theoretical studies on the play-literacy connection have

provided the impetus for a number of empirical studies.

There are two main strands of research in this area, both

of which focus on the parallel representational processes

involved in literacy and play. One strand of research exam-

ines how to enhance literacy use and knowledge through

symbolic play (see, e.g., Jacob, 1984; Miller, Fernie, &

Kantor, 1992; Neuman & Roskos, 1992, 1993; Roskos,

1988). Schrader (1991) and others (see, e.g., Roskos &

Neuman, 1993) have been interested in the ways that children

pretend to write as part of their dramatic play. Michaels

(1981) examined children’s sharing-time narrative styles and

differential access to literacy. Dyson (1997) studied the reci-

procal relationship between children’s writing and the super-

hero dramas and discussions that followed in the classroom

and on the playground. 

A second strand of research has emphasized children’s use

of language in symbolic play. Much of the research in this

area has demonstrated that when teachers and parents be-

come involved with children’s pretend play, there are positive

increases in children’s literacy, language, reading, and writ-

ing (Bloch & Pellegrini, 1989; Christie, 1991; Galda &

Pellegrini, 1985; Goelman & Jacobs, 1994; Pellegrini, 1984;

Pellegrini & Galda, 1998). 

Play as Communication 

It was Bateson (1955, 1972) who first suggested that play was

a paradoxical form of communication. He argued that play is

socially situated and characterized by the production and

exchange of paradoxical statements about people, objects,

activities, situations, and the relationships among these.

Bateson (1972) saw play as an ancient form of communica-

tion, which was based on his notion about animals’ play fight-

ing. He argued that because animals have no negatives (i.e.,

they cannot say “no”), negative behaviors such as “biting

must be illustrated positively by not really biting” (Kelly-

Byrne, 1989, p. 246). Playful nipping must be communicated

as not really biting, even though it stands for biting. Thus,

play is not merely play, but is also a message about itself. In

Bateson’s words, “these actions in which we now engage

do not denote what these actions for which they stand