Play is one of the best ways young children learn, but only when it's varied, stimulating and gently guided towards something worth learning. Left unstructured, with the same tired toys and nothing new to discover, it teaches surprisingly little and can quietly dim the very curiosity it's meant to feed. The research is clear that guided play, where an adult gently steers while the child stays in charge, helps children learn far more than free play left to run on its own.
Key takeaways
- "Learning through play" is sound, but it has too often been watered down into unstructured wandering with the same old toys.
- Guided play (a knowledgeable adult gently steering the play) helps children learn more than free play alone.
- Guided play is at least as effective as direct teaching, and on some measures, like shape knowledge and early maths, more effective.
- A young child can only learn from what's put in front of them, so novelty and variety matter.
- Take children's questions seriously: follow their interest and add to it.
What has "learning through play" turned into?
I visited a preschool recently, and what I saw was sadly typical of what I come across all the time: the same old, well-used equipment sorted into various boxes, for the children to wander around, choose from, pick up and play with. Except "choice" implies real options, not the same familiar and over-used equipment, day after day, which offers very little real choice, let alone the chance to learn anything new or different.
The only sign in this preschool that any early learning topic had been covered that week was a string of tired-looking, plastic-sealed cards about the habits of hedgehogs, strung up at adult height, so no young child could actually have seen them. They certainly couldn't have read them, since they were written in grown-up wording with barely an image in sight. In other words, they were put up for show, for the parents, rather than for the children.
Beyond that, there were numerous scraps of paint-daubed paper with random images like snowmen (it was still summer) that bore no obvious relationship to anything the children might have been doing that week, or even that month.
This is not an isolated observation. I've seen it frequently, not just in my local area but in many other places: random, unstructured wandering, with little real potential to learn anything much worth learning.
This is what "learning through play" seems to have quietly become. And surely it was never meant to be like this?
What was "learning through play" supposed to mean?
The idea that young children learn through play is absolutely sound. It's one of the truest things we know about early childhood, and there is no shortage of research and respected experts to support it.
But that research champions play in which real learning, and the real opportunity for learning, actually takes place.
Somewhere along the way, what began as a description of absorbing, purposeful play, full of new things to discover, has deteriorated into "leave them to it with a box of bits, some paint and a sand pit, and let them get on with it".
The words "learning through play" survived; the true meaning of the benefits it was supposed to give little children quietly drained away into "learning very little through play".
Why do the words "early learning" make some of us nervous?
It's worth pausing on why so many people instinctively recoil from the phrase "early learning", as though it must mean hothousing babies and toddlers with non-stop flashcards from dawn to dusk and childhoods cut short.
I suspect much of it is that, for a great many of us, our own experience of learning, at school and sometimes long after, was something to be endured rather than enjoyed: pressured, dull, anxious, forever measured by tests. So we hear the word "learning" and envisage stress, and, quite naturally, we want to spare our children from it.
But that reaction, however well-meant, rests on a misunderstanding. For a young child, learning isn't the opposite of play; it is play. Done well, it looks nothing like a classroom and everything like delight: little children discovering, wondering, asking questions and having a go. The problem was never learning itself. It was the joyless way so many of us were made to do it. (Here's how much young children can really learn when it's done well.)
Why has it come to this?
It's tempting to blame individual preschools or teachers, but that would be unfair, and it would miss the real culprit. The system simply doesn't ask for much.
In the United States there is no single national standard for what a young child should be learning; it's a patchwork of state guidelines that varies enormously from place to place. And where expectations do exist, they tend to swing between two unhelpful extremes: on one side, what researchers call "schoolification", formal, test-driven instruction pushed down into ever-younger classrooms; on the other, a well-meaning retreat into pure free play, as a reaction against that academic push.
It's much the same in the UK, where the official early-years inspection framework has a great deal to say about safeguarding, welfare, inclusion and behaviour, all vital, but comparatively little to say about how much young children can actually learn.
Both extremes miss the mark. One drills the joy out; the other leaves too much to chance. In neither is there a clear, ambitious picture of just how much a young child is truly capable of, without "schoolification", and without unintentionally dumbing them down. Teachers, for the most part, are doing exactly what the system asks of them. The problem is that the system asks so little, and that, I suspect, is a large part of why so few people realise how much more these remarkable early years could hold.
What's the difference between free play and guided play?
Here's where it gets interesting, because the research draws a sharp line between two very different things that both get called "play".
Free play is what I saw at that preschool: children left to choose freely among a set of objects, with no adult guiding where they go or what, if anything, they learn.
Guided play is play with a light hand on the tiller: a knowledgeable adult gently steering it towards something worth learning, while the child still feels fully in charge. Crucially, it's an adult who takes a child's endless questions seriously and gives real, meaningful answers, not a shrug and a "well, they're only kids' questions, aren't they?". A child whose questions are met with real interest keeps on asking them, and if a carer doesn't know the answer, they take the time to find out.
What does the research say about guided play?
The difference in what children actually learn is striking. In one well-known 2013 study, preschoolers grasped the properties of shapes far better when an adult guided their play towards them, while another group, simply handed the very same shapes to play with freely, learned far less (Fisher et al., 2013).
A 2022 systematic review of 39 studies, led by researchers at the University of Cambridge, reached a similar conclusion. Guided play was at least as effective as direct teaching on every outcome studied, and more effective for early maths, shape knowledge and switching between tasks (Skene et al., 2022). So this isn't an argument for worksheets and drilling. It's the opposite: play is a wonderful way to learn, provided there is actually something in it to learn, and someone helping to draw it out.
Where does learning through play go wrong?
A child can only learn from what's put in front of them. This is the heart of it. A two- or three-year-old cannot go looking for what they don't yet know exists. They learn from what they are introduced to: the experiences, objects, words and ideas an adult brings into their world. Leave them with only the same repetitive activities, and there is simply nothing new to learn. Their horizon is exactly as wide as the room you put them in, and no wider.
Almost nobody realises how much more a young brain can take. The neuroscience of the early years is extraordinary: the speed and capacity of a young child's brain, and its appetite for novel and diverse experience (see how genetics and environment shape a baby's brain). Yet very little of it has filtered into everyday understanding. It's often said that children are like "little sponges" because they soak up information so quickly, but somehow this never quite gets translated into activities that motivate and inspire a child's natural love of learning as much as it could.
The learning through guided play that happened in my schools
For our curious and enthusiastic preschoolers, learning was the fun. They flourished, absorbing knowledge and skills that regularly astonished the adults around them, and showed just how much more a young child can learn and enjoy when they are presented with opportunities and activities that capture their interests.
Our science teacher, a doctor of biochemistry who lectured undergraduates at a leading London medical school, ended up teaching our three- and four-year-olds the same topics as his undergraduates. Not because he was pushing them, but because one day, while getting some activities out of his briefcase, the children became fascinated by a diagram for a lecture he was due to give later that day. He ended up discussing the topic with our curious little scientists, who asked far more questions, and were far more attentive, than his twenty-something students ever were.
This, in a nutshell, is early learning in action. Work with the interest, and go wherever it leads you. You'll probably end up learning a lot too; I know all our teachers did. Little children don't know whether they're asking a preschool question or a postgraduate one. To them it's just another question, and sometimes they ask the darndest things, mystifying everyone and sending you both off on yet another learning journey.
So today, give your child something real to wonder about, and they will take you further than you ever expected. That is what learning through play was always meant to be.
Frequently asked questions
Isn't this just what Montessori does?
Montessori deserves real credit here. It's one of the few well-known approaches built on exactly this principle: a carefully prepared, purposeful environment, real and meaningful activities, and an adult who guides rather than merely supervises. Where a setting does Montessori well, much of what I'm describing is already happening, and that's to be applauded. My argument isn't with that; it's with the watered-down "free play" with the same old stuff that too often passes for early learning elsewhere. Where I'd go further than any single method is in just how much new and varied experience we can offer a young child, because their appetite and capacity for it is far greater than we tend to assume.
Should I be teaching my toddler, or just letting them play?
It's not the either/or it's often made out to be. The most effective approach isn't choosing between play and teaching; it's teaching through play, or rather teaching through enthusiasm and enjoyment: following your child's lead and then quietly adding to it. A few flashcards are fine when they're part of a full range of early learning activities. Bring some focus and intention to the play that's already happening, so it goes somewhere. (See also what is the best age to start teaching my child?)
How do I make play more educational without ruining the fun?
Lightly, and by addition rather than instruction. Follow what already interests your child, then extend it: a new word, a real object, a "what do you think would happen if…", a trip that brings the topic alive. You're not taking the fun out; you're giving the fun something to feed on. Children find novelty and a gentle challenge exciting; that's the fun. Ready-made activities can help too, such as my printable early learning worksheets and the playful Maggie's Magic T-Shirt storybooks.
How can I tell if my child's preschool is doing enough?
Look past the displays. The signs of a good setting are variety that actually changes week to week, adults who get down and engage with the children rather than just supervising, and play that connects to real themes and experiences. Be a little wary when the main evidence of "learning" is a wall of neat displays pitched at adult height; that's often for the grown-ups, not the children.
Want to see what enriching early learning looks like at home?
My book Tomorrow's Child Starts Today shows how to turn everyday life into real learning that's fun for the little ones and the grown-ups too. Read a free chapter extract.
Sources
- Fisher, K. R., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Newcombe, N. and Golinkoff, R. M. (2013). Taking shape: supporting preschoolers' acquisition of geometric knowledge through guided play. Child Development.
- Skene, K. et al. (2022). Can guidance during play enhance children's learning and development in educational contexts? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Child Development.
About the author
Teri Farrari is a developmental psychologist, natural health practitioner and early years consultant with more than thirty years' experience with young children and their families. She founded and ran her own Holistic Early Learning Schools, and her work has featured on BBC News, Sky Television, The Sunday Times, the Daily Mail and in Parents magazine. Read more about Teri or work with her one-to-one.
