Play as assessment

The child with the stethoscope was language delayed and getting services. Before this picture was taken, we had spent several days for Valentine's Day on learning about the heart. We had run in place and felt our hearts beating. We had passed around a real stethoscope to hear our own hearts, and listened to each others. We had even listened to my dog's heart when he paid us a visit. We drew outlines of each other's bodies and then filled in anatomy, relying on a big book of anatomy for children as well as our examinations of our own bones. This child did not speak very much during these activities, though he participated as well as he could. Then, during a play period, he decided to play doctor on Scooby Doo!
I teach my college students, mostly childcare workers, that assessment of very young children consists of using many different avenues to knowledge of the children. Work samples are, of course, classic examples of assessment, put in portfolios for a good picture of the child's ongoing progress in fine motor, linguistic(using captions quoted from a child), and cognitive development. I also teach them about using photography and digital or tape recorders. This photograph shows that a boy learned something from our unit on the heart. He couldn't have told us what he knew at that point (although follow-up has shown that he has made great leaps of development in his verbal skills). If my camera hadn't been handy, or a pen to write anecdotal records, for that matter, would we have caught this? The classroom can be chaotic. Children come with issues and needs incessantly. Being proactive with these "tools of the trade" helps us document learning in a way that can't be done in older, traditional methods.
Then again, I need to come back to the title of this blog entry! The boy was caught in the act of play, showing his new-found knowledge. He was practicing what he knew in a play scenario. He put it all together. Play is how children learn. Most preschool teachers know this.
Not all parents and administrators, nor policy makers do.