The Neurological Benefits of Learning Through Play and Action

    The terms coined as hands-on learning, or learning through play, have long been used as strategies for developing the young minds of children. I worked at a daycare for two years with students that were infants to six year olds. The largest part of our curriculum was creating hand-eye coordination games, or tasks that involved building and stacking items. I always assumed this helped the students learn and improve their motor skills. What I did not realize was that there are long lasting and permanent effects in the brain due to hands-on learning and learning through play.

    After reading Elizabeth Wakefield et. al. article, “Learning math by hand: The neural effects of gesture-based instruction in 8-year-old children” I started to realize the neural effects and benefits that the hands-on tasks I conducted with the students truly had on their developing minds. This idea and learning strategy has commonly been used in school systems for many years. However, what is new is the evidence that shows exactly why and how hands-on learning and learning through play actually improves learning and brain development.

    In the article “Learning through play (early childhood development)” by the authors of Theirworld, they explain the strategy of learning through play and how it affects brain development all the way into adulthood. Theirworld states how simple games and tasks such as peek-a-boo or building a tower can “teach young children about communication, develop their motor skills and help with problem-solving” (Theirworld). Furthermore, these tasks and games allow children to “discover maths and science concepts, including shapes, gravity, balance and counting” (Theirworld). Learning how to count through picking up each stuffed animal on the floor and counting them out loud, or learning categories by practicing putting away toys in labeled totes, all is learning through action. In Wakefield’s research, she found that “learning through action… has lasting effects that continue to influence processing, even when learners are no longer producing any actions at all” (Wakefield 2). This relates to Theirworld’s claim that the learning and development children achieve when they are young, stretches out to affect them all the way into their adulthood. 

    In the Theirworld article, they talk about a case in which poor families in Jamaica had children with stunted growth due to the lack of time spent playing and learning through action. The neurological reasoning behind why these children had stunted growth was because, specifically, learning through play and action “recruits sensory and motor areas more heavily than passively learned information” (Wakefield 2). This all just goes to show how vital the first 8-10 years of a child’s life are in developing their brain properly. In the Theirworld article, they state that “80% of brain development is completed by age three and 90 % by age five” (Theirworld). This means how children learn during these ages is vital to how they will learn and grow mentally in the future.

References:

Learning through play (early childhood development). (2020, October 15). Retrieved October 16, 2020, from https://theirworld.org/explainers/learning-through-play-early-childhood-development

Wakefield, E. M., Congdon, E. L., Novack, M. A., Goldin-Meadow, S., & James, K. H. (2019). Learning math by hand: The neural effects of gesture-based instruction in 8-year-old children. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 81(7), 2343-2353. doi:10.3758/s13414-019-01755-y