As a school speech-language pathologist, I would often ask my students, “What is your favorite school subject? Many of my students would gleefully and quickly respond...
RECESS!
I would have to remind them that that was not what I meant. What I actually meant was which school subject did they prefer? Was it math, reading, writing, social studies, science, or a specials class? My students would give me “that silly look,” and, again, say
RECESS!
This always made me chuckle, but also made me wonder why that was usually their favorite response. I believe it had to do with the social language learning aspect of it as much as the play.
Some educators are laser-focused on the need to get in as much of the curriculum each day as possible. It can easily be forgotten that there is equally important learning in play.
During recess, children often love to play games with other children. Some children are even quite imaginative by making up their own games with their own rules. So many positive language learning events can occur in that span of recess time.
Social Language Skills Inherent in Play
When children play together they:
Learn how to initiate and maintain conversations. Initiating can be seen when children ask others to, “Come play with me!” They maintain their conversations by dialogue turn-taking during the participation of the play.
Learn how to follow directions and do so sequentially. Young children can be more tolerant and helpful to those who need explicit step-by-step instructions. As children become more advanced, they can become less tolerant of those who have difficulty with directions. Guidance and positive modeling from school staff on the playground can help children understand differences in comprehension abilities.
Learn how to negotiate and cooperate. With each conflict, opportunities to learn new social language skills arise. Problem-solving is necessary during conflicts. Social norms such as turn-taking and fairness are all evident on the playground when kids learn to "play by the rules."
Learn how to form inferences about others’ interests, which helps build friendships. Common preferences for games and activities join children together leading to the building of friendships. They make inferences about their peers as they hang out together. The more times positive outcomes occur, the better the social language develops.
Taking Social Language Skills Back Into the Classroom
How do these skills make it back to the classroom for positive learning environments?
Let’s take a look.
Initiating and maintaining conversations
When teachers ask students questions, their immediate responses maintain the discussion. When students ask questions, they initiate their efforts to clarify what has been taught or what is unclear.
Following directions
School is all about direction following for assignments, helping fellow students in the classroom, lining up to go to a specials’ class, participating in expected ways in the various classrooms and groups, following procedures for lunchtime, getting on gear for snowy day recesses, passing in the hallways, and, eventually leaving for the end of the day.
Negotiating, problem-solving, and cooperating
Group work in the classroom is fairly common these days. Being able to problem solve who takes which responsibility in group learning takes these language skills and puts them into action so that the group discussion and activities run smoothly.
Inferencing what is seen and heard
Students do many activities in the classroom for visual inferencing such as attending to information on displays and bulletin boards, when it is time to transition, how the others are attending to, and following teacher/staff instructions. Auditory inferencing is also crucial to a student’s listening or language comprehension skills for following and correctly sequencing directions, story comprehension, visual presentations, and attending to details.
Building friendships
Building friendships helps children learn to become helpful, empathic, inclusive, and kind young people. This elevates moods for the joy of learning in the classroom, anticipation for the new events of the day, cooperation among peers, and desire to get back out to recess.
So, the next time someone asks your child what's their favorite subject at school and they say,
RECESS!
You might want to chuckle like I do, realizing all the benefits of Learning Language Skills during play!
If you would like to discuss how speech and language therapy can help your child with the social language skills beneficial to play and friendships, please contact me at pst@peggysspeechtherapy.com or text 248-820-5134. Let's set up a complimentary consult this week!
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