Time Together: Learning to Play with Young Children [Video and Facilitator's Guide]
Carrie Sharp, Rae Latham, Linda Freedman, Christina King
Designed for early childhood educators, speech-language pathology students, and parents, this 30-minute videotape recording helps adults understand their role in play and shows how to join play, keep children involved, and support the natural process of learning that is part of every play experience. It teaches simple techniques that help all adults become good play partners, including: when to join a child's play and when to step back, determining the level of involvement that is appropriate, how to follow the child's lead during play and ways to avoid taking over a child's play, and how to help children focus on their play so they can stay involved to explore, discover, and learn more. A viewer's guide discusses how children develop physical, thinking, and language skills through play, and the benefits of adult involvement. A facilitator's guide provides background material, program objectives, workshop ideas and activities, and an excerpt from the video script. (Contains 12 references.)
Carrie Sharp, Rae Latham, Linda Freedman, Christina King. Time Together: Learning to Play with Young Children [Video and Facilitator's Guide] (1989). Educational Productions, Inc.: Beaverton, OR.
(23 pages).
Language: English
Reading Level: Average
Formats Available: Printed Material, Videotape
(Contact producer regarding price.)
Educational Productions, Inc.
9000 SW Gemini Drive
Beaverton, OR
97008
Phone: (800) 950-4949
Fax: (503) 350-7000
Email: custserv@edpro.com
URL: http://www.edpro.com
Languages Available: English, Spanish
Tiempo juntos: Aprendiendo a jugar con niños pequeños [Spanish] [Time Together: Learning to Play with Young Children] [Video & Guides]
Intended User Audience:
Users may be parents, family members, faculty/trainers, preservice for students and inservice for teachers and caregivers of children from 1 1/2 to 6. Content is presented at an introductory level.
Product Development:
This material was developed by a group of faculty/trainers in ECE and EI/ECSE in-house staff at Educational Productions. All professionals participating have worked with culturally and linguistically diverse children.
The Spanish translation was prepared by Corporate Translations, Portland, Or. Key personnel are native Spanish speakers and professional interpreters.
Product Evaluation:
During development and production feedback was obtained from faculty/trainers. Informal evaluation is ongoing with professionals in ECE and EI/ECSE who use the material to train parents, students, caregivers and teachers.
Product Dissemination:
Approximately 4,082 individual videotapes have been sold across the United States. Numbers on the recently translated edition are not available.
Review #1
About the reviewer:
The reviewer has been an educator and administrator for several
schools and universities in the Midwest, South, and Southwest and
has received a doctorate from the University of Cincinnati. The
reviewer has worked with diverse populations in urban, rural, and
isolated areas, including children and families who are African
American, European American, Native American (Navajo and Hopi), and
Mexican American.
Audience:
This material was developed by C. Sharp, R. Latham, L. Freedman, and C. King, a group of faculty/trainers in early childhood education and early intervention/early childhood special education, and in-house staff at Education Productions. All participating professionals have had experiences working with children who are culturally and linguistically diverse. The English version of the material was released in 1989 and a Spanish version was released in 2000. The Spanish translation was prepared by Corporate Translations of Portland, Oregon, with key personnel being native Spanish speakers and professional interpreters. This review is of the English version of the material.
The purpose of the material, according to developer Carrie Sharp, is to help adults learn to interact with children more comfortably by showing them the value and the importance of play. The premise of the material is that it is important for adults to understand that play is the framework for how a child develops and learns, and that it is important to help adults learn simple techniques for supporting play.
This material was designed for individuals engaged in preservice, inservice, and/or parent education. The developers state that the material has an intended audience of parents, family members, faculty/trainers, preservice students and inservice teachers and caregivers of children from two to eight years of age. Other potential users of the material include teachers (early childhood, early intervention/early childhood special education), therapists, counselors, and school psychologists. Approximately 4,000 individual videotapes have been sold across the United States. Numbers sold of the recently translated edition were not available.
Strengths of the Material:
The strengths of the English version of Time Together: Learning to Play with Young Children (video and guide) are numerous. The comprehension level of the video is easy, with the narrator using simple sentences and minimal technical jargon. This video is part of a video training series entitled Play Power: Skill Building for Young Children. The facilitator's guide is well organized and print-friendly to most readers/users. This guide includes: a brief program summary, five program objectives, three short notes to the facilitator to help viewers get the most out of the videotape, before-viewing suggestions to transition the audience into the videotape, and after viewing notes to assist the facilitator in concluding the session.
The facilitator's guide also includes a fourteen-page section for two workshops, including ideas and activities. The first workshop focuses on a general orientation to play. The second workshop focuses on learning how to play with young children. A reproducible, four-page viewer's guide (1991) is also available for use as a companion when watching the video. A component of the guide this reviewer finds particularly helpful for trainers and other educators is the wide range of activities presented. Some of the activities are tied directly to the videotape, such as watching a small segment of the video and recording child observations. Other activities include role-playing, reflective-based questions, and prompts for the facilitator to encourage discussion. The video provides a range of strategies to facilitate play including direct interaction, peer interaction, and cooperative learning. The facilitators guide also includes a bibliography. The materials are suitable for interdisciplinary teams, including families. The material does provide a variety of methods for conveying information that reflect different learning styles and skills building developmental patterns.
Limitations of the Material:
The material does not acknowledge and addresses issues of power, racism, prejudice, and socio-economic class. The individuals in the video are predominately white, with no acknowledgement of cultural and linguistic diversity throughout the video and accompanying guides. The English version of Time Together: Learning to Play with Young Children (video and guide) does not emphasizes the importance of establishing a comfortable rapport with all families and their learning goals in order to support parent-child skill-building play activities. The diversity in families and children is not addressed, a critical missing component in this video and guide. There is no acknowledgement of disabilities, family structures, home language, cultural perceptions and their relationship to play.
Adaptations:
The materials would be greatly enhanced if users could show how everyday play activities, in diverse situations, occur in children's home, school, and community to help facilitate a child's play development. The information should encourage more communication among partners (e.g., families, teachers, childcare providers, pastors) regarding family and community views of play expectations. The importance of culturally and linguistically diverse family participation in the successful development of their child's play skills definitely needs more attention by the users of this material.
The presentation of the materials, from a personnel preparation perspective, would need to be modified for such potential audiences as parents, undergraduate teacher candidates, or graduate students in a course addressing play. The material would serve as a good resource if the user included information on the dynamics of culture, language, play and families.
Generalizability:
The material provides a sound theoretical base in play skills development and could be useful in many communities. However, the user must have knowledge regarding play and the ability to include information reflective of the specific cultural and linguistic diversity in their community and the community's beliefs about children and play.
Recommendations:
This reviewer recommends this material with adaptations. This material is an asset to the professional who works with staff and parents unfamiliar about the value and role of play. The material is easy to use and reflects current practices. However, this reviewer recommends this material only if adaptations are made by the user; as a trainer and researcher the reviewer found information regarding home language, differences in families, and acknowledgement and respect for cultural and linguistic diversity to be absent.
Producer's Response:
Not available at this time.
Review #2
About the reviewer:
The reviewer is a school psychologist and preschool special education
consultant in Anchorage, Alaska, where she has worked with Chinese
and Korean Americans, Athabaskan, Aleut, Tlingit, Haida, Yupik
Eskimo, and Inupiat Eskimo families, as well as Samoan, Filipino and
Tongan families. Many of her students live in rural and remote
locations, although she has also worked with urban and suburban
families, some of them new immigrants. She coordinates the Child
Find and assessment process, supervises services for children with
special needs in Head Starts and private preschools, and is
community liaison with local infant and toddler intervention
programs and other community agencies. She has a Ph.D. from the
University of Minnesota.
Audience:
The intended user audiences for this video, viewer's guide and facilitator's guide include parents, family members, and caregivers of children two to eight, as well as those who do preservice or inservice training for caregivers. The material is at an introductory level. Materials are available in English and Spanish.
Strengths of the Material:
This video and the accompanying materials are an excellent package for helping parents and caregivers learn how to play with children and why play is important. The material is presented clearly and in simple language. Therefore, it is easy to use and understand by those providing as well as receiving the training. In addition to a well-produced and interesting video, the written materials assist the viewer in understanding the materials presented in the video. The facilitator's guide provides outstanding suggestions that incorporate many recommended practices for teaching adult learners. For example, facilitators are encouraged to get to know their audience and are given guidelines to ask their audience to reflect on what they remember about play as young children, to role-play adult-child play situations, and to participate in simulations that encourage them to view the environment from a child's perspective.
This training material covers an important topic that is often neglected. It discusses the important role that play has in the lives of children and encourages the user to view play as a vehicle for fostering healthy social and emotional growth and caregiver/child relationships. It addresses the fact that not all adults are comfortable and skilled at playing with children, but offers the hope that with knowledge, time, and practice it becomes easier.
Limitations of the Material:
This material does not address cultural and linguistic diversity directly. There is some limited diversity represented in the people shown in the video and facilitator's guide, but the teachers and skilled parents are not obviously culturally diverse. This could be subtly discouraging to some viewers. The guides do not specifically encourage awareness and sensitivity to cultural or linguistic differences, increase knowledge and understanding of cultural and linguistic diversity, or encourage exploration of personal attitudes and values about cultural and linguistic diversity. The materials does encourage facilitators to tailor the training to the needs of the audience through self-reflection and examination of their experiences Although play is universal, there are some cultural differences in how parents view play and these are not acknowledged or discussed.
Adaptations:
Facilitators could easily adapt the training activities that accompany the videotape to include discussions of cultural issues. In fact, many of the activities suggested would be likely to bring out discussion of such things if the audience is culturally diverse, making the materials generalizable to many audiences. In audiences that are not culturally diverse, it would be important to make sure that these issues are discussed if the trainees are providers or potential providers of services to children other than their own.
Generalizability:
This material is intended for parents, family members and caregivers; however, it would be useful for early intervention facilitators and specialists who work with young children to design ways to incorporate play and caregiver-child interaction into their intervention. It would also be useful in inservice and preservice training programs to show practitioners the value of play.
Recommendations:
This reviewer recommends this material with adaptations. This training material offers an excellent training experience on a topic that is not often covered. Although the video would be better if more diversity were represented, skilled trainers with knowledge of diversity could use these materials effectively by making sure that accompanying activities give trainees the opportunity to explore issues of diversity.
Producer's Response:
Not available at this time.
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