Parten's Stages of Play

Parten's Stages of Play

Mildred Parten

She was one of the earliest reseachers to study children at play. Parten focused on the social interactions between children (ages 2-5) during play activities and as a result she developed five stages of play in 1932.

The five stages are:

Solitary,

Onlooker, Parallel,

Associative, & Cooperative play

Play can be defined as an activity that a child values and enjoys. It is self-motivated as well as chosen freely or encouraged. Play is an engaged activity that holds the interest of a child and helps that child connect and learn from the world around him/her.

Play is fundamental and important because it plays a key role in children’s learning and development. It increases their social competence and emotional maturity as well as their cognitive and physical development.

Through play, children’s fine and gross motor development and body awareness increase by actively using their bodies.

An example of fine/small motor development would be using writing tools because a child's natural progression in small motor development starts from scribbles to shapes and forms to recognizable and representational pictures.

An example of gross/large motor development would be hopping or skipping. A child progresses from hopping from one foot to the next to hopping for just the joy of hopping which for elementary children turns into a game of hopscotch or jump rope.

Play also helps develop the five senses in a child. For instance, a child uses his/her hands to touch discover messy things such as mud and eyes to see different colors.

Children use play to help them develop their problem-solving skills like using big toys to measure against small toys to discover they are two different sizes.

Children can develop their mental planning by playing ‘school’ and becoming the teacher to their friends.

Children use play to have them become self-motivated and they even learn to evaluate themselves. A child learning to spell the word ‘sunny’ may ask another child to help him/her complete the word. A child may notice that a calendar is missing the number 3 which shows that he/she understands how to write the date.

Play provides a way for children to express themselves and cope with their feelings.

Children learn to cope with their feelings when they act mad, sad, happy, or silly in situations they can control. For instance, a child may say he is mad because a toy truck hit and hurt his dog.

Children develop emotionally through Pretend Play

Children simplify things and events by creating imaginary characters, plots, or settings to express their emotional state.

Children will compensate situations by adding prohibited acts to pretend play. For example, a child would pretend to eat ice cream for lunch or candy for breakfast.

Controlling their emotional expressions they will even reenact unpleasant or frightening events repeatedly such as pretending to have an accident after seeing a real accident occur.

They will even blame an inappropriate act on a doll or teddy bear to avoid chastisement.

Play helps children practice their verbal and nonverbal communication skills. For instance, a child starts to use body language and words to express that he/she is unhappy or excited.

Children learn to see each other's point of view and as a result begin to become more empathic and caring for others. Also, Children will experiment with role playing to communicate the needs and wishes of themselves as well as those around them.

Play also helps children respond to their peer’s feelings while learning to share and take turns. A child will learn to comfort another child by giving him/her one of their toys.

Children develop abilities to compromise with someone else as well as resolve conflicts while they play. For an example, two little girls will compromise roles during house, one will be the mommy and the other will be the sister.

“The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.”

--Plato

Children usually are focused on their own individual play activity or toys, with little awareness as well as reference to what other children are doing around them.

Children are passive in their play and usually just watch or converse with other children that are engaged in play activities.

"We don't stop playing because we grow old;

we grow old because we stop playing."

--George Bernard Shaw

"Play is important for children of all abilities because it lays the foundation for reading, writing, mathematical reasoning and creativity."

-- Beth Boosalis Davis

Created by:

Amanda Young

Martha Faye Leopard

Mary Lauren Acrey

Social

Parallel Play

Emotional

Occurs when children play alongside each other and appear to be playing together; however, during this stage there is typically no interaction.

3

2

to

Solitary (Independent) Play

YeAr oLdS

VeRy

(cc) photo by medhead on Flickr

Cognitive

young

CHILDREN

Physical/Motor

When children play using their bodies it makes them feel physically confident, secure, and self-assured.

Onlooker stage

Very

young

Children

There may be some interaction and they usually share the same objects, but they do not have the same goals.

3 year olds

Cooperative Play

to

4 1/2 year olds

Four

to

Six

Associative Play

YEAR OLDS

This stage occurs when children participate in similiar activities without specific directions or guidelines.

Children in this stage play and work together to reach a common goal! They also tend to organize themselves and others into roles to complete specific goals. For example, a restaurant staff: cook, waiter, server, etc.

Children may be playing in a sand box with trucks but they have different storylines.

(cc) image by anemoneprojectors on Flickr

(cc) photo by theaucitron on Flickr