3-3 | Playing to Learn: The Role of Play in the Early Years
Playing to Learn: The Role of Play in the Early Years
Routledge, New York, 2011. Contents, images, bibliography, index. 141 pp. $31.95. paper. ISBN: 9780415558822
Playing to Learn: The Role of Play in the Early Years by Sandra Smidt, presents theory, research, and application about play with detailed, cross-cultural case studies. Smidt writes well and supplies many examples that will resonate with both students and practitioners. The author includes more theory than offered in many cursory textbooks of child development and early-childhood education, which are typically limited to the “big” theories minus details concerning sociocultural context in which these theories were created. While Playing to Learn presents the ideas of classic theorists, Smidt identifies important, yet not widely taught, theoretical concepts that help us better understand play.