Literacy-Play Connection

One of the biggest additions to the Ravenna Branch in the past few years has been Bulldog Acres, our farm and vet themed Storyville. But what is Storyville for?  The truth is so obvious that it might come as a bit of a surprise:  

Storyville exists so that younger kids can read AND play. 

Why do librarians make you play games and sing songs during Storytime? Hint: It’s NOT because we want to play games and subject others to our singing and dancing. (That’s just a bonus for us.)  

Play is an important part of developing early literacy skills. By playing pretend kids can learn that a box can represent a car, or their parent can be a patient who needs care. This symbolic understanding helps children understand that a written word can represent objects and concepts.  

One type of play kids engage in is referred to as narrative play. A narrative can be simple or complex, but it offers the same benefit: It also allows children a safe space to act out various scenarios-- including those which make them anxious-- and allows them to make up solutions to those scenarios (raise your hand if you pretended you were caught in quicksand when you were a kid). Together, narrative play helps children understand two important things that are crucial to early literacy: Critical thinking and story structure.  

Play also allows children to build confidence. When we’re doing arts and crafts, we’re allowing children the space to make decisions without adult input (except maybe an occasional “please don’t paint the table or your clothes or yourself”).  This is true in playing pretend as well. A variety of decisions are made in play: The cow is healthy OR is sick and needs medicine; the horse is a patient OR a steed; the plastic food is for sorting OR for eating. Playing pretend creates an environment in which kids can make their own decisions and fix their own mistakes. This confidence can help with difficult tasks later in life including—you guessed it! —reading and vocabulary. 

So, when we say Storyville is in the library to help kids learn how to read, we really mean it. Storyville has both books and toys because both are important for building early literacy skills.