Heroes of resiliency and reciprocity: teachers’ supporting role for reconceptualizing superhero play in early childhood settings

Superhero play is a specialised form of fantasy play with considerable appeal to young children. During superhero play, children have opportunities to pretend and often to play different types of roles within a safe and caring environment. When guided appropriately in an early childhood classroom, superhero play gives young children opportunities to gain a sense of mastery and empowerment as well as developmentally appropriate benefits by improving language skills, problem-solving and cooperation with peers. By recognising and modelling the characteristics of resiliency and promoting kindness with peers during superhero play, teachers can encourage children to be kind and resilient heroes to classroom friends. As today’s classrooms increasingly include diverse members, it is important for young children to understand and appreciate the peers they play and learn with at school. The result may be a richer learning experience and may break down barriers that can produce unfairness, bullying and aggressive behaviours. This article explores the essence of superhero fantasy play along with its benefits for young children. In addition, the article examines the challenge of superhero play in classrooms for early childhood educators by exploring teachers’ roles in play. A new pedagogy for supporting superhero play is introduced, addressing spiritual and educational concerns by suggesting ways in which teachers can increase resiliency, encourage new friendships and build classroom community among peers during play and classroom activities.     

But I want to fly too!: Girls and superhero play in the infant classroom

This article describes a study which was conducted in an inner-city school in the north of England, in a base which contained 57 children aged 6 and 7 years old. The purpose of the study was to explore the potential role of popular culture in the literacy curriculum. During the project, a socio-dramatic role-play area which was related to a popular superhero icon was set up in the classroom. Children's play in the area was recorded using a variety of methods, including field notes, video recording and photographs. Some of the previous research on superhero play has focused on the attraction the discourse has for boys or suggested that girls take on a non-female persona in such a play. The findings from this study suggest that superhero play is strongly attractive to girls, who explore agency and autonomy through such play and actively position themselves as females within a heroic discourse.     

Moral and political identity and civic involvement in adolescents

McCrary's work in the late 1990s suggested that superheroes influence children's development of moral values. Similarly, Bauer and Dettore advocated adults' and educators' monitoring of children's superhero play to help children foster cooperation and conflict resolution skills. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between children's attitudes toward themselves and their attitudes towards superheroes. Forty‐two fourth‐grade children (aged 9–11) from a school in Massachusetts completed a questionnaire. Results indicated that participants generally rated themselves and their superhero as being high on prosocial behaviour. Findings suggest that there may be a relationship between how children feel about themselves and how they feel about superheroes.     

Superhero Play: What's a Teacher to Do?

The dilemma over whether or not teachers should allow superhero play in their classroom continues. This article examines adults' beliefs about superhero play and suggests some potential benefits of such play. The authors offer examples of ways they have incorporated superhero play in their classroom.     

“Yes And”: The Uses of Improvisation for Early Childhood Professional Development

In their teacher preparation and professional development training, early childhood teachers learn about the importance of play for children’s development; yet they are rarely taught how to play with children. Once in the classroom, many teachers do not interact responsively to children’s play; instead they ignore, interpret, or dominate the activity. Building on the theory that play is a collective activity similar in form to improvised performances, and that teachers can develop their ability to play collectively, this article presents findings from a pilot project that explored the use of improvisational (“improv”) theatre workshops as a professional development tool for preparing teachers to be better players. The analysis of the data suggests that the skills associated with responsive teaching can be taught through participation in improv workshops and that learning to improvise can give teachers new ways to understand their role in the classroom.     

From the Reading Rug to the Play Center: Enhancing Vocabulary and Comprehensive Language Skills by Connecting Storybook Reading and Guided Play

This article explores the preschool teachers’ use of concrete and abstract comments and questions within the classroom contexts of storybook reading and guided play to promote classroom conversations. Early childhood educators promote oral language development by creating a language-rich environment in which children become active participants in classroom dialogue. Teachers must intentionally plan and scaffold this learning through interactive storybook reading and storybook extensions using props through guided play. This article provides examples of the types of comments and questions that can serve to model and facilitate children’s vocabulary and comprehensive language development and subsequent literacy skills.     

Playing with popular culture – an ethnography of children's sociodramatic play in the classroom

This article explores how ethnography allows for an understanding of the way children are empowered through the use of popular culture during sociodramatic play. The study discussed was conducted in an inner-city Primary school in regional New South Wales, Australia. The participants were a composite fifth-to-sixth grade class, and the research focused on dramaturgical sessions. The methods were diverse, employing an ethnographic framework, including participant observations, performance and focus groups. The findings reveal that children have a shared knowledge of popular culture that is used during drama to create and perpetuate their own subversive subculture. This process is carried out through children's bricolage of popular texts and use of carnival-like humour. Overall, the article enriches understandings of how children collectively create cultures with their peers through the use of popular culture during improvised drama sessions in the classroom. The article further discusses the associated implications of these cultural processes for pedagogy.     

Curious play: children’s exploration of nature

This article explores the concept of ‘curious play’ as a theoretical framework to understand and communicate children’s experiences of free play in nature. The concept emerged interactively from three sources of inspiration: an ethnographically inspired study of children playing in nature; as a critique of the concept of ‘risky play’ being the dominant discourse on children’s play in natural environments; and from phenomenological and cultural-historical theories of children’s play and play environments. The article illustrates this interplay through an analysis of two empirical examples, and argues that curious play offers a comprehensive and existential approach to understanding the interplay of children playing in nature and children’s growth. Thus, children are conceptualized as active explorers and playful agents whilst embodying and creating knowledge, skills and understandings of themselves and their life-worlds.     

Using a Standardized Task to Assess the Quality of Teacher–Child Dyadic Interactions in Preschool

Research Findings: This study explored the quality of teacher-child interactions within the context of a newly developed standardized task, Teacher-Child Structured Play Task (TC-SPT). A sample of 146 teachers and 345 children participated. Children who displayed the highest disruptive behaviors within each classroom were selected to participate. Teacher-child dyads (n=345) participated in a play session that included free play and clean-up tasks. We adapted two coding schemes to assess the quality of both teachers’ and children’s interactive behaviors during these two tasks. The coding schemes exhibited internal and inter-rater reliability. Significant associations with classroom-level teacher-child interactions and children’s observed classroom engagement provide support for the measure’s validity. Differences in teacher and child-interactive behaviors across the two tasks (free play versus clean-up) suggest that task features may affect the quality of teacher-child interactive behaviors. Practice and Policy: Examining the interactions of different teacher-child dyads within the same standardized context will allow researchers to better understand the child and teacher factors that contribute to the quality of those interactions. Thus, use of this task in future field-based research may help to assess the impact of early interventions and professional development efforts that target improvement in the quality of teacher-child interactions.     

Flipping the Coin: Towards a Double-Faced Approach to Teaching Black Literature in Secondary English Classrooms

Critiquing two approaches that English teachers use to teach Black, or African-American, literature in the secondary classroom – one that centralises races and the other that ignores it – this article proposes a hybrid approach that combines both. This double-faced approach recognises the culturally specific themes that give the text and the Black author their unique voice while also recognising commonalities that bridge the text to others – despite the race of the authors. To demonstrate the feasibility of the double-faced approach, the article concludes with an examination of three texts through the lens of this ‘race both matters and doesn’t matter’ perspective.     

Solution Stories: A Narrative Study of How Teachers Support Children’s Problem Solving

Young children’s self-regulation and problem-solving skills are significant predictors of school success. While early childhood educators shape the development of these skills, providing effective and timely assistance can be challenging. Drawing on complementary theories of Vygotsky, Pekrun, and Lerner, this article chronicles the instructional approaches and strategies employed by one team of teachers to support preschool children’s solutions to complex functional and social problems in the classroom. Findings from this narrative study highlight the focal teachers’ use of modeling, mindful language, and other proactive strategies to develop students’ problem-solving skills and foster independence. In an age of results-focused education, this article argues for the importance of cultivating intentional teacher pedagogies that build young children’s autonomy and efficacy by working through problems, as opposed to seeking resolution only. In so doing, this study elucidates the value of these intuitive and often nuanced aspects of early childhood educators’ classroom practices.     

Promoting Early Writing Skills through Morning Meeting Routines: Guidelines for Best Practices

Observational studies suggest that early writing instruction rarely occurs in early childhood classrooms, despite the importance of supporting young children’s writing development. Morning Meeting Time (MMT) routine is a typically occurring large group activity in early childhood classrooms that is interactive and familiar to teachers and children. Because it is interactive, occurs daily in most preschool classrooms, and is comprised of regular routines that can easily be modified, MMT provides a meaningful context for promoting young children’s writing development. This article describes the characteristics of MMT, discusses the rationales for infusing interactive writing instruction into MMT, and provides seven research-based guidelines for adding writing to MMT in early childhood classroom environments.     

‘Are you working or playing?’ Investigating young children’s perspectives of classroom activities

Play is valued conceptually and pedagogically, although its place in early years settings is under increasing pressure. Framed by the sociology of childhood and understandings of children’s agency, this article reports on an ethnographic study with children aged five years in the first year of primary school in Australia. The study investigated children's understandings of play in classroom activities involving different periods of teacher-framed and child-selected activities. Drawing on children’s accounts and video-recorded observations, the study found that children’s participation was influenced by teacher-framed agendas, and the agency afforded to them to engage in self-chosen activities and to design and negotiate their play spaces. For instance, children generally were unenthusiastic about writing activities and called these activities ‘work’ if they were directed by the teacher, and yet they consistently chose to engage in writing activities during periods of freely chosen activities. The findings raise questions about what counts as ‘play’ and ‘work’ for children, and the important function of play and free choice to mobilise participation in foundational academic activities such as writing. These understandings generate opportunities for educators to reflect upon ways to enhance children’s participation in everyday play activities in the classroom as supporting foundational academic activities.     

‘Children’s clans’; social organisation and interpretive reconstruction as aspects on development of peer-groups in outdoor play

The focus of this article is children’s self-organisation of peer-groups through play. The play was initiated by encounters with the environment. The use of ethnographic methods in early childhood research has proved helpful to elucidate, interpret, and understand children’s experiences and the creation of meaning in their everyday lives. This inquiry draws on field notes, informal conversations with the children, and photos from a study of kindergarten children’s experiences of outdoor places and landscapes in Norway. Going out of doors together with the children regularly over a period of 10 months revealed aspects of how children’s interactions in play connect to their use of natural landscapes and its place in peer-group social organisation. The data are presented as ‘narrative maps’ and episodes written as ‘emplotted’ narratives.     

‘Quicksand of Hate’: Experiences of Islamophobia and Poetic Resistance

How might English classrooms be spaces where Muslim students are empowered to recognise and resist Islamophobia? This qualitative study draws on theories of critical consciousness and Islamophobia to show how Bassim, a Muslim student, makes sense of Islamophobic encounters through the poetic and analytic writing he creates in his public high school English classroom. When examined intertextually, Bassim’s words offer a glimpse of what Islamophobic experiences are like for some contemporary Muslim students. The findings suggest that through his English class, Bassim is able to use poetic and analytic writing as the means by which he recognises and resists Islamophobia. Further, this study indicates that more work should take up the implications of students’ religious beliefs and the ways those beliefs shape their writing – particularly when they are members of a marginalised religion.     

The Use of Activity Theory as a Methodology for Developing Creativity within the Art and Design Classroom

This article discusses the use of an activity theory system as an analytical tool within the school art and design classroom. It highlights reasons for its use and makes explicit its importance for investigations into teaching and learning. It proposes that through an activity theory system, teachers and researchers are enabled to reflect on the formation of thought and develop an understanding of pedagogy, where classroom roles, rules and participation are made visible. The article draws on primary research which explores the development of creativity within the English Key Stage 3 (age 11–14) art and design classroom. Illustrations are provided to show how through the use of an activity theory system a multi‐layered analysis took place. This generated reflection on relationships and structures within and surrounding the classroom, impinging creative activity. Through using the activity theory system teachers and researchers were enabled to observe the complexity of the classroom and question socio‐cultural‐political structures which empowered change.     

Conflict resolution and children’s behaviour: observing and understanding social and cooperative play in early years educational settings

This paper draws from continuing research into the growth of sociability and cooperation in young children. It began in the mid‐1980s and has continued periodically in a range of early years educational settings across the 3–6 age range. The research has underpinned the development of an observational tool. This tool – the Social Play Continuum or SPC – has been used in personal and paired data collection by the author and jointly with early years educators. This paper draws from play observations of nursery children (aged 3–4 years) and reception class children (aged 4–5 years) in one school. The focus here is on conflict in play and its interpretation. The paper considers a relationship with stress in children’s lives and its potential impact on playful learning needs. The author advocates increases in playful learning and pedagogies rather than engagements with conflict resolution programmes. Three data‐based vignettes contextualise children’s play to illustrate the need to deepen understanding through observation about the nature of conflicts – with peers and with adults – and the wider implications for playful pedagogies.     

The Effects of a Comprehensive Early Literacy Project on Preschoolers’ Language and Literacy Skills

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a federally funded early literacy project that aimed to promote the school readiness skills of preschool-age children from low income families. Through daily, explicit, and systematic instruction, the project targeted to improve preschoolers’ oral language skills, phonological awareness, print awareness, and alphabet knowledge that aligned with the existing curriculum of the local school district. Data were collected through multiple sources at the individual child level, classroom level, and from the family/home environment. Significant gains were found between pre- and post-tests in child outcomes, classroom environments, instructional practices, parent attitudes toward early literacy, and family involvement in literacy activities. Additionally, classroom organization was identified as a significant predictor for children’s receptive language skills. Limitations of the current study and implications for future research as well as instructional practices were discussed.     

Integrating Writing into the Early Childhood Curriculum: A Frame for Intentional and Meaningful Writing Experiences

Despite the importance of early writing development to children’s school success, research documents that early childhood teachers spend little time actively supporting children’s writing development in preschool classrooms. This article provides a framework for integrating writing experiences across the early childhood curriculum. Practical examples are given regarding how writing opportunities can be incorporated into existing activities and play settings. The metaphor of backgrounding and foregrounding writing experiences is used to illustrate ways that teachers can set writing rich environments and activities in a manner that makes it easier for teachers to bring these experiences into everyday learning opportunities. Attention is given to how teachers can bring writing to the foreground of the curriculum by drawing attention to writing materials, making natural connections with children’s interest and play, and scaffolding children’s early writing attempts and experiences.