There are many different ways to engage students in a lesson, using technological resources is a great way to ensure that students are engaged and focused on the topic that they are learning. However, there are other ways to promote higher levels of student engagement. An important factor of this is by implementing play-based learning opportunities into the classroom. Children love to play, and it has been proven that dramatic play is important to the child's development, so why not incorporate it into an educational setting. The text " Expanding Early childhood literacy curriculum through play - based film - making and popular media" by Linda Coggin and others states that "Engagement in play allows children to work on a text as characters within an imaginary scenario and in the process, create co-authored meanings. The meanings that children create through play are built moment-to-moment, requiring each player to quickly interpret and respond to the directives and unfolding dialogue as well as to the embodied movements of other actors" (Coggin et al, 2014, p.3). I wanted to reflect upon this statement because at the school in which I currently work at, we encourage learning through play, all of the rooms have a play kitchen set, costumes to dress up in, which promotes that dramatic play aspect. This method can be incorporated into a ELA or literacy lesson, for example, for a reading comprehension lesson a book can be read to the students multiple times throughout the week and then towards the end of the week you can assign the students to represent different characters and have them act out the story for their class. This allows the students to have fun while learning, and can be used as a form of encouragement to be actively engaged in the lesson.
Reference
Coggin, L. S., Wohlwend, K. E., Buchholz, B. A., & Wessel Powell, C. L. (2014a). Expanding Early Childhood Literacy Curriculum through Play-Based Film-Making and Popular Media.
