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Teaching in a play-based curriculum:
Theory, practice and evidence of
developmental education for young
children
Bert Van Oers a & Debbie Duijkers b
a Department of Theory and Research in Education, Faculty
Psychology and Education , VU University Amsterdam , Van der
Boechorststraat 1, 1081 BT, Amsterdam , The Netherlands
b Teacher Training Department , University of Applied Sciences ,
Hogeschool Zuyd Pabo , Heerlen/Maastricht , The Netherlands
Published online: 24 Jan 2012.
To cite this article: Bert Van Oers & Debbie Duijkers (2013) Teaching in a play-based curriculum:
Theory, practice and evidence of developmental education for young children, Journal of
Curriculum Studies, 45:4, 511-534, DOI: 10.1080/00220272.2011.637182
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2011.637182
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Teaching in a play-based curriculum: Theory,
practice and evidence of developmental education for
young children
BERT VAN OERS and DEBBIE DUIJKERS
This article focuses on the possibilities of teaching in a play-based curriculum, which has
become an issue of international relevance. As a domain of study, the Developmental Edu-
cation approach was taken in the early grades of Dutch primary schools (grades 1–4, ages
4–8). The article describes the theoretical basis of the approach and how it is elaborated in
a play-based curriculum for early years classrooms. Particularly the teachers’ strategies for
the promotion of development will be discussed in more detail. Finally, the article presents
a piece of the evidence base of this approach by reporting a research on vocabulary acquisi-
tion. Despite methodological limitations of the empirical study, the evidence suggests that
teaching in a play-based curriculum is not only theoretically plausible and practically feasi-
ble, but also seems to be effectively useful for the attainment of positive outcomes (on
vocabulary learning) as compared to a strictly teacher-driven approach.
Keywords: Play; curriculum; teaching; developmental education
Early years education in pre-school and primary school has been domi-
nated for a long time by strongly child-centred approaches, for example
based on the ideas of Montessori, or Froebel (see Morgan 1999). Over
the past decades, however, societal pressure on schools has been growing,
due to increasing demands on schools for economically valuable outcomes
and accountability. In the mean time theories of cognitive learning also
developed considerably, which reinforced the trust in goal-directed man-
agement of learning processes in schools. In this turmoil of events since
the 1960s, the dominating concept of education changed into a teacher-
driven approach that conceived of education as a process of transmission
of culture through unequivocally defined goals, deterministic methods,
direct instruction, and empirically validated theory (see for example Slavin
1996, Muijs and Reynolds 2001). Accordingly, early childhood education
also entered a period in which young children were to be prepared for the
Bert van Oers is Professor of Cultural-Historical Theory of Education at the Department
of Theory and Research in Education, Faculty Psychology and Education, VU University
Amsterdam, Van der Boechorststraat 1, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands; email:
hjm.van.oers@psy.vu.nl
Debbie Duijkers (MSc in Education) is a teacher at the Teacher Training Department,
University of Applied Sciences, Hogeschool Zuyd Pabo, Brusselseweg 150, 6217 HB
Maastricht, The Netherlands; email: debbie.schreuders@zuyd.nl
J. CURRICULUM STUDIES, 2013
Vol. 45, No. 4, 511–534, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2011.637182
Ó2013 Taylor & Francis
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school career and had to learn the prerequisites for school learning, par-
ticularly with regard to literacy and mathematical performance.
In the same period, however, many educationalists, pedagogues, and
practitioners were deeply concerned about both the child-centred
approach that in their view did not foster all children’s developmental
potentials, and the teacher-driven approach that allegedly reduced chil-
dren to trainable production factors in an economically driven society,
and incited schools to neglect their pedagogical responsibility of promot-
ing broad development of autonomous cultural identities in children.
Many people from this critical movement were inspired by the works of
Vygotskij,
1
who conceived of children’s development as a cultural pro-
cess of identity development in which education had a significant role to
play (see for example Vygotsky 1997, Kozulin et al. 2003, van Oers
et al. 2008). A core idea of this approach is the assumption that child
development is a largely cultural–historical process based upon the
child’s appropriation of cultural tools in the interaction with adults and
more knowledgeable peers (see Vygotsky 1978). This idea is nowadays
elaborated in different early childhood education programmes that are
implemented in early years classrooms on a daily basis in a number of
schools and for a long time (see Tools of the mind, US, Bodrova and
Leong (2007); Key to learning, UK, Dolya (2010); Developmental Educa-
tion, The Netherlands, van Oers (2009)). The issue for the present arti-
cle is to explain the theoretical basis for the Developmental Education
approach and how it is applied in early years classrooms, characterized
as a play-based curriculum. In a Vygotskian approach to development,
the appropriation of cultural tools like language is an important educa-
tional task, and we will take the teaching of vocabulary as a paradigm
case for demonstrating the potentials of the Developmental Education
approach. Whereas teaching in a play-based curriculum may sound
contradictory to many people, the present article will also show how this
is possible, and argue for play as a valuable context for learning and
teaching.
Vygotskian tenets of developmental education
It is widely known that Vygotskij’s view on human education was based
on assumptions about the social origin of the human mind (van der Veer
and Valsiner 1991, Valsiner and van der Veer 2000). The human mind
develops through appropriating cultural tools in interactions with more
knowledgeable cultural others. Particularly the historically developed cul-
tural tool of language plays a crucial role in the developmental process of
human beings as it enables people to communicate with each other and
with themselves. It is through the interiorization of the interpersonal use
of language (communication) that the cultural mind develops (Wertsch
1985, Tomasello 2008). Education has an outstanding role to play in sup-
porting the use of communicative tools for promoting the cultural devel-
opment of pupils. Through communication the adult can give the child
access to new cultural experiences that go ahead of the child’s actual level
512 B. VAN OERS AND D. DUIJKERS
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of development. ‘Good learning’, according to Vygotskij, is learning which
is ‘in advance of development’ (Vygotsky 1978: 89). Such ‘good learning’
can promote development. This notion of ‘development-promoting learning’
is the basic starting point for the ‘Developmental Education’ curriculum.
Vygotskij’s emphasis on the important role of the adult in promoting
children’s development inevitably confronted him with questions about
the developmental potentials of (young) children, as well as with problems
concerning the conditions and limits of this adult interference. In his
view, the developmental potential of human beings was never restricted to
what they had achieved in past learning (the actual level of development).
Developmental potential is significantly related to what children (or more
generally people) can learn with the help of more knowledgeable others, a
notion that he referred to as ‘the zone of proximal development’.
In the elaboration of our Developmental Education curriculum, we
also employed this idea of the zone of proximal development (ZPD), but
qualified this notion beyond the usually quoted definition that operation-
alizes the ZPD as ‘the distance between the actual developmental level as
determined by independent problem-solving and the level of potential
development as determined through problem-solving under adult guid-
ance or in collaboration of more capable peers’ (Vygotsky 1978: 86). The
problem with this ‘discrepancy-formula’ of the ZPD is that it can actually
legitimize approaches to learning that fit in with teacher-driven transmis-
sion types of learning, since direct instruction can also be seen as a way of
providing help to pupils in order to achieve new learning outcomes that
are beyond the child’s actual level of development. Vygotskij himself was
well aware of this problem when he wrote:
We have said that the child in collaboration can always do more than inde-
pendently. But we have to add: not infinitely more, but only within specific
limits, strictly defined by its developmental level and intellectual abilities.
(Vygotskij 1982: 248)
2
In his explanation of this point of view, Vygotskij pointed out that the
zone of proximal development should be seen in the context of activities
that are meaningfully accessible for the child. In this context Vygotskij
also refers to the notion of imitation and states that ‘imitation’, basically,
is the core of the zone of proximal development (Vygotskij 1982: 250).
And elsewhere he writes: ‘Using imitation, children are capable of doing
much more in collective activity or under the guidance of adults’
(Vygotsky 1978: 88). Hence, we are led to a qualified definition of the
zone of proximal development, that does not refer to any action that can
be learned with help, but to those new actions within the context of mean-
ingfully accessible activities that can be appropriated under the guidance of
more knowledgeable others. That is to say: the ZPD lies within sociocul-
tural activities that a child can and wants to imitate. It is important to
note here too that imitation for Vygotskij was not a process of mechani-
cally copying of actions. Basically, the ZPD refers to any sociocultural
activity that a child can accomplish with the help of others (Vygotskij
1984: 263), and agency within such activities depends on the participants’
abilities to benefit from assistance of others (Edwards and D’Arcy 2004).
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With regard to young children’s learning, Vygotskij saw the zone of
proximal development particularly in these children’s role play. In his
explanation of the function of play for development, Vygotskij pointed
out that it is role-play that makes the adult culture accessible for young
children. By participating playfully in the adult world, the child can imi-
tate adult activities and meaningfully enter a zone of proximal develop-
ment that creates opportunities for development-promoting learning,
provided the child is properly assisted (see Vygotsky 1978: 102). How-
ever, such play also gives the child a new form of desires, not only the
wish to master specific new actions, but the desire to adopt a personal
role in the play activity, including the mastery of the rules involved. Play,
according to Vygotskij, is the basic medium for child development: ‘The
child moves forward essentially through play activity. Only in this sense
play can be considered a leading activity, that determines child develop-
ment’ (Vygotsky 1978: 103).
The notion of play as a leading activity was not profoundly elaborated
by Vygotskij. It is obvious, however, that play as a leading activity quali-
fies the young child’s zone of proximal development in an important way.
The notion of play as a leading activity was further elaborated by El’konin
(1972), who pointed out that play is the main and developmentally most
productive context for learning of children at the age of 4 to about 7.
El’konin (1989: 67–69), however, also stresses the cultural–historical sta-
tus of play and states that play should not be seen as a natural character-
istic of children, but as an educational strategy in industrial societies to
give children access to adult life and cultural activities, and thus create
the opportunities for the child to appropriate complex tool-mediated adult
actions with the help of cultural others. Karpov (2005) gives an extensive
treatment of play as a leading activity and particularly documents with
empirical evidence the significance of the adult’s role for children’s devel-
opment during this leading activity.
Following the Vygotskij–El’konin line of reasoning, the Developmental
Education curriculum adopts the idea of play as a main descriptor of the
context for learning and development for children in the age range of 4–8
(see for example van Oers 2009). However, a further definition of play
was needed in order to implement this concept in the curriculum. Neither
Vygotskij nor El’konin were very specific in their definitions of play.
Given the ambiguity of the notion of play (see Sutton-Smith 1989), it
is important to be clear about its meaning. Traditionally play opens a way
to a child-centred approach to children’s learning, but this would be a
misrepresentation of the intentions of Developmental Education, which
acknowledges the important role of the adult in young children’s develop-
ment. Particularly for the implementation of a play-based curriculum it is
important to be clear about the relationship between playing and learning,
and about the position of adults towards play in order to distinguish this
approach from a child-centred approach (which refuses the adult to take
part in children’s play), as well as from teacher-driven approaches (that
tend to separate playing from learning, and even tend to reduce the
opportunities of play in the school context, see Wood and Atfield 2003,
Zigler and Bishop-Josef 2006, Hirsh-Pasek et al. 2009).
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Using the point of view of activity theory (as developed by Vygotskij’s
colleague Leont’ev (1975)), we interpreted play as a specific format of
cultural activities. All cultural activities can be formatted in different
modes, organizing the actions of the participants in characteristic ways.
For instance, a very strict activity format (like in drill-and-practice) pre-
scribes strict rules to the actors, allows them no freedom as to the deci-
sion how, why, and when the actions should be accomplished, and does
not require any personal involvement in the actions. On the other hand
we can also observe activities in human beings (like in role play) where
rules are present, while the players always maintain some degree of free-
dom with regard to how the activity should be played (even sometimes
with regard to the prescribed rules!), and also show a high level of per-
sonal involvement. In our view, formats of cultural activities can be
defined on the basis of these three parameters: presence of rules, level of
involvement, and degrees of freedom. Role-play can now be defined as a
sociocultural activity, formatted in such a way that there are:
(implicitly or explicitly) shared rules,
some degrees of freedom for the participants with regard to how the
activity should be carried out, and
high levels of personal involvement.
The advantage of this approach to role play is that it makes no restric-
tions as to the status of the participants, as long as they recognize the
format of play and don’t disturb any of the essential parameters of this
format for themselves or for the other players. Being basically a cultural
activity this conception of play intrinsically acknowledges the participa-
tion of adults (see also Wood and Atfield (2003), who also acknowledge
the significance of the participating adult in children’s play; also Karpov
(2005)). Moreover, as cultural activities essentially include the function
of learning, we can also integrate learning and play, by considering the
changes in the playing actions or in the content of the activity as dem-
onstrations of learning. Learning and playing cannot be separated, in
our view. As we shall demonstrate later in this article, the participation
of the adult or more capable peers in a role-play can even lead to
embedded goal-directed learning and instruction, which makes playing a
potentially rich educational context for learning in early childhood edu-
cation.
With these theoretical notions in mind, we have been working at the
construction and implementation of a play-based-curriculum in primary
school classes grades 1–4 (aged 4–8 years). It may be obvious, however,
that such a curriculum can only be developed gradually, following the
steps of the growth of educators’ own psychological understandings of
play, learning, and development. And, similarly, the process of imple-
mentation in classrooms is also a step-by-step process of collaboration
among many experts like teachers, innovators, teacher coaches, and
researchers. In the next section we will describe the curriculum in a lit-
tle more detail, particularly focusing on the role of the teacher in chil-
dren’s play.
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Teaching in a play-based curriculum
In the following, we will give an impression of the dynamics of learning
processes in the context of a play-based curriculum. In advance, however,
a brief clarification must be given on the notion of curriculum. We use
this word in the original sense of ‘trajectory’ and more specifically the tra-
jectories of learning that pupils go through during the school years. The
play-based curriculum is not a prescriptive syllabus to be followed by the
teacher on a day-to-day basis. Rather, the teacher constructs the curricu-
lum in close interaction with the children in the classroom, informed by
the children’s interests, the teacher’s mandatory goals and his personal
ambitions. The teachers merge their personal and formal goals with the
children’s interests in order to guide them towards the teaching goals that
are mandatory for the schooling at that age. Evidently, this play-based
curriculum is no ‘laissez-faire’-event. Children in the play-based curricu-
lum have to appropriate specific cultural tools and competences for par-
ticipation in cultural practices: e.g. learning to read, to write, to do
mathematics, to live together, and to develop motoric skills and specific
interests and motivations etc.
In the true Vygotskian sense, teaching in this play-based curriculum is
to become (like life) a creative act in which the teacher constructs novelty
within the constraints and provisions of the situation (see Vygotsky 1997:
346–350). Needless to say that this is not an easy endeavour and in the
implementation process we are not mongering illusions that this can be
achieved easily overnight. In fact, learning to teach in this play-based cur-
riculum will take a longer trajectory of teacher learning, guided by teacher
educators and a whole supportive infrastructure consisting of educators,
colleague-teachers, and authors of ‘good, exemplary practices’. Trans-
forming teaching from a technocratic transmission process into a mean-
ing-driven process that brings together cultural and personal meanings is
a long-lasting process (see Tharp et al. 2000; van Oers, in press).
In the following, we will give a brief impression of a play-based teach-
ing-learning process by describing a paradigmatic classroom example, fol-
lowed by a brief elaboration of one category of tools a teacher can use for
promoting worthwhile learning processes within joint activities.
An example from the classroom
The descriptions of classroom examples are taken from observations in
Developmental Education schools, working with the programme ‘Basic
Development’,
3
as described in the works of Janssen-Vos (2003, 2008)
and Pompert and Janssen-Vos (2003). Play situations of the type
described below occur all the time in the play-based curriculum with vary-
ing contents (museum, post office, a vet’s practice, hospital, travel agency,
bakery, shoe store, etc). Every 6–8 weeks the teacher chooses a new
theme that is translated into a sociocultural practice (activity) in which
children can adopt roles, employ the role-bound tools, and learn about
the rules and tools within the context of that play. The choice of the
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theme can have different bases: a significant event in the community (e.g.
one child got involved in a car accident), events in the year (e.g. going on
vacation), or a specific interest of the children (e.g. dinosaurs, or World
Championship Football). In the transformation and elaboration of the
theme-related practice, children are involved as much as possible: they
help in setting up the situation (e.g. the travel agency office), and the
main topic of the current script. Children are important co-actors in the
choice of the significant tools, set-up of specific goals, definition of rele-
vant rules, story to be played out, etc.
The following is a paradigmatic classroom situation from the Basic
Development programme (after Janssen-Vos 2008: 82):
A grade 1–2 combination class (children of 4 and 5 years old together) has
visited the school doctor. This was an impressive event for the children and
the teacher decided with the children to set up in the play corner of the
classroom a consulting room of the doctor. In a conversation the teacher
and children decide what they need for making a real consultation room,
and they collect things from everywhere to set up the situation. They
brought paper and pencils, but also a weighting scale, a measuring rod, a
stethoscope. Gradually the children started playing. They were highly
involved, acknowledged some of the rules (like the rules for measuring), but
also used their relative freedom in the ways they played out the activity. The
teacher is also in the waiting room as a patient, but plays multiple roles: an
educational assistant (sometimes the children themselves ask for help),
sometimes a critical observer (the teacher asks questions and focuses atten-
tion in a natural way, similar to how children among each other ask ques-
tions or shout ‘look here what a big number!!!’), sometimes as a patient.
The children start weighting and measuring. Pascal plays the doctor and
wants to know exactly the weight and length of Hannah, and to write it
down on a piece of paper. The teacher asks: ‘Can you see how much Han-
nah weights?’ And Pascal looks at the scale and asks: ‘This mark, Miss,
how much is that?’ And the teacher answers: ‘Look at the scale, Pascal,
there are numbers on it. Here you see 15, that is 15 kilos. The next mark is
1 kilo more, so that is 16 kilos. So yet another mark further is ... What
would that be? ... And Pascal answers: ’... 17 kilos, so this must be 18 and
this is 19. Hannah is 19 kilos!’
He wants to write it on his paper: ‘That is a one and a nine’.
This brief fragment is just one event from a continuous series of interac-
tions in a play context. What we have witnessed here is the teacher’s spot-
ting of a teaching opportunity that she uses to help the child with
improving its participation in this type of activities. The other participating
children have observed this activity and may have learned from it too. In
many cases we see that the surrounding children actively participate in the
collective thinking process and sometimes significantly contribute to it.
Although not present in the play session described above, in several
similar sessions the teacher focused on the writing of numbers, writing or
reading recipes, or on building social relationships. In this way the teacher
interacts with all children, in the whole group, in a small group, or indi-
vidually. Most of the time the teacher imagines in advance what type of
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actions she wants to provoke, but she also picks up on the emerging ques-
tions, interests, or actions of the children. Sometimes a play-embedded
instruction is given (like in the example), which is generally accepted as
meaningful by the children as it contributes to their wish to participate
self-dependently in the activity.
Tools for teachers in a play-based curriculum
In the teacher training process, teachers are intensively assisted by their
coaches in the appropriation of specific teaching tools for the productive
use of children’s play activities as meaningful contexts for learning. For a
further characterization of the play-based curriculum, we will focus on a
tool which is supposed to support the teacher in the process of evoking
learning within the context of play. This tool, called ‘Impulse’, is a collec-
tion of strategies that aims at the elaboration of children’s activities into
new meaningful actions that constitute a basis for further learning. The
following impulses are part of the expert teachers’ repertoire who aims at
setting up productive play (Janssen-Vos 2008: 109–116):
Orienting
Teachers explore the situation and related activities with the children, and
focus the children’s attention on specific aspects or actions. In a role-play
in a doctor’s practice the teacher explores the children’s personal experi-
ences and shares them with others. Children focus on the details of such a
practice: what is going on there? What kinds of things are involved? Which
roles are involved? Et cetera. Through this orientation children can also
get engaged in the set-up of the situation or the script of that situation.
Structuring and deepening
Just providing a situation and tools is often not an optimal way of intro-
ducing productive play. Young children need open structures in order to
get involved in role-play activities and benefit from it. The teacher devel-
ops a story (script) with the children that is played out by referring to a
common story or by opening the scene with a particular act: e.g. the tea-
cher enters the scene as a concerned mother with a sick child, who has a
broken leg. What we are going to do? In general, the teacher tries to set
the scene with the children by introducing a problem and discussing what
is to be done? What do we need? Such questions give more detail, struc-
ture, and depth to the activity.
Broadening
This impulse aims at connecting the role-play activity with other activities
and capacities of children. In the doctor’s play, children are encouraged
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to think about the waiting room and how to decorate it, for instance with
leaflets, advertisements or informative posters, and warnings. This activity
draws children into writing and drawing of specific practice-related texts.
In the travel agency children may get involved in collecting or making
leaflets of (exotic) countries, but also in consulting an atlas, and
calculating prices of trips, etc. A successful broadening of children’s
activity always is felt as a contribution to the children’s play.
Contributing
Important innovations of children’s play can be achieved by introducing
new tools into the play that answer specific needs of children. In the play
of the school doctor, for instance, the doctor and her assistant want to
measure the height of all children in the class. They write down all the
numbers on a paper and the teacher then introduces a way of graphically
representing the outcomes by way of lines of different lengths. Our class-
room experiences and research over the past decade have demonstrated
that the introduction of schematizing into children’s play should be con-
sidered a meaningful contribution to children’s play (van Oers 1994),
with significant positive effects on the development of mathematical think-
ing (see Poland 2007, Poland et al. 2009).
Reflecting
During the activity the participating teacher constantly gets the children
involved in little moments of discourse on the ongoing activity: how is
it going, is this what you want? Can you do it otherwise? What does
this mean? Are you sure? These discourses stimulate children to think
about their actions and to translate them into comprehensible narra-
tives, including new questions. Such reflections have important func-
tions for the evaluation of the activity, but also for starting new
orientations that may lead to new (broadening, contributing, deepening)
activities.
As we know from extensive innovation literature, any substantial
innovation requires serious attention for the training of the teachers
who have to do the job in their daily practices with children (see
among others Tharp et al. 2000, Fullan 2001, Hargreaves 2005). In
our own group’s work, the teacher education activities related to the
implementation of Developmental Education (‘Basic Development’) into
classroom practices also spends serious and long-lasting investments in
teachers and schools. Only then we found that the classroom activities
of these expert teachers turn out to be productive in terms of chil-
dren’s learning outcomes.
In the next section we will demonstrate—although cautiously—the fea-
sibility of the approach, with the help of research in the domain of vocabu-
lary learning. As explained before, vocabulary teaching in early years
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classrooms (5-year-olds) is taken as a case for demonstrating the potential
of teaching in a play-based curriculum like Developmental Education.
Following Vygotskij’s emphasis on the role of language and literacy for
human cultural development, promoting language development is seen as
an important learning objective in Developmental Education classrooms.
The next section describes a piece of research that may support the
value of the Developmental Education approach and its teaching
strategies. It is, however, a small scale study with some methodological
limitations (as characteristic for much practice-based research), which
cannot be taken as definite proof of the superiority of Developmental
Education. In our view, however, it can be taken as an empirically-based
example of the feasibility of Developmental Education for the improve-
ment of early years play-based classrooms.
Exempli gratia: Vocabulary learning in a play-based
curriculum
The body of evidence for the value of playing as a context for learning in
different areas is definitely growing (see for example Hirsh-Pasek et al.
2009). In our research we are permanently collecting data on learning
outcomes of children in the play-based curriculum of Developmental
Education. Our outcomes in this study (based on a quasi-experimental
pre-test–post-test design with control groups) may add to this body of evi-
dence and further demonstrate the value of Developmental Education in
the early years of primary school, particularly with regard to vocabulary
learning of 5-year old pupils. The study was carried out by Duijkers
(2003). The research is based on the comparison of two approaches to
teaching young children: one is a common practice, based on direct
instruction as is frequently practiced in the Netherlands, the other is the
Developmental Education programme. The next section starts with a clo-
ser description of the two practices with regard to vocabulary teaching.
The two approaches of early learning
In the Netherlands both the teacher-driven (task-based) and play-based
(Developmental Education) approaches for early childhood education are
in use in primary schools. Although there are no research-based estimates
for the exact number of schools committed to either approach, we have
indications that 5% of the Dutch schools is following the Developmen-
tal Education approach. The popularity of the programme-driven
approach will be even more. Both approaches have in common that chil-
dren are conceived as active learners, and both share the conviction that
learning requires teacher–pupil interactions, as well as peer co-operation.
With regard to the time spent per week in vocabulary learning activities,
both programmes are alike. Schools committed to either of these
approaches participated in our research project. We will briefly describe
each approach.
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A teacher-driven approach
The early education programme ‘Piramide’ is conceived here as an
example of the teacher-driven approach. Piramide was developed in the
national Dutch institute for test development (CITO) by van Kuyk
(2003, 2004). Piramide is a programme for the 3–7 year olds. Theoreti-
cally the programme starts out from a number of different theories and
articulates the importance of both the children’s own initiatives and the
teacher’s initiative. The programme is said to combine both initiatives by
scheduling on a daily basis free play, independent learning, and work with
the teacher in projects and cursory programmes (focusing on knowledge
and abilities from the school curriculum). Free play and work with the
teacher in projects and cursory programmes are separate activities.
Although the teacher can support and encourage children in their play,
she is not supposed to teach during play. Teaching takes place in the con-
text of projects and embedded cursory programmes. Most of the learning
outcomes of the programme result from such projects and tutoring. The
role of the teacher and the fixed programme are strong determinants for
the pupils’ learning and development. That is why we characterize the
programme as a whole as a teacher-driven programme.
For the stimulation of vocabulary development a language corner is
set up. For the younger children this is a corner with picture books, sim-
ple reading books, pictures with written words on the wall, exhibition of
the alphabet and elementary words like ‘door’, ‘chair’, etc. The school
year is programmed on the basis of 12 projects that last 3 weeks each.
Each year starts with a welcome project and proceeds along the sequence
of projects in a fixed order. Each project is based on a specific theme
(‘My body’, ‘In the supermarket’, ‘Water in the house’, etc.).
Most of the vocabulary teaching takes place within the projects and
the cursory works with the teacher. The course of the projects is
described in a project book that the teacher should follow. The core of
the projects exists of neatly described sequences of tasks for individual
learning, group work (co-operative learning), or tutor learning under
guidance of the teacher. As an example we describe part of the project
‘Water in the house’ (from grade 1, 4–5 year olds), as described in the
programme’s manual (figure 1).
The children are supposed to answer the teacher’s questions or repeat
the teacher’s words. The whole working procedure obviously follows a
typical IRE-format (initiation-response-evaluation) that is so common in
traditional classrooms (see Cazden 2001). For the teacher the relevant
vocabulary is explicated in a network of concepts (only the circle ‘shower-
ing’ is completely translated here; the other circles are also filled in with
words, but not completely translated here; from van Kuyk (2003: 87))
(figure 2).
The programme contains many of such prescribed projects and tasks.
Most of the time the children are engaged in tasks that draw their signifi-
cance mainly from the programme itself. Although the children are often
involved in teacher-led task-based activities, the activities remain isolated
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and external from their lives, and allow children only a peripheral partici-
pation. In one of the tasks the children watch the teacher washing the
dishes; after each item washed, the teacher shows it to the children, says
its name, and the children have to repeat the word after the teacher. So
they say (and allegedly learn) ‘plate’, ‘knife’, ‘fork’, ‘dish rack’, or even
‘sun glasses’, and ‘pencil sharpener’ (see van Kuyk 2001, lesson 6).
As the description of the programme already suggests, the vocabulary
development is to a great extent based on teacher-driven, task-based
learning. The tasks are prescribed and ordered by the programme. Our
classroom observations confirm this. During project time in this research
school, most of the time the children are engaged in individually accom-
plishing tasks related to the target words. Basically, the process is
grounded in associating a word with a particular experience or a part of
the experiential world (‘fast mapping’, see Bloom 2001).
Showering
Water-tap-feel-wet-dry-
warm-cold-drop
Tepid-clean-splashing-lather-
washing
Soap-shampoo-rinsing-
washrag-towl-drying-
Lather
Water-tap-feel-smell-
etc……
What do you do with
water?
Water-tap-feel-smell-taste-see-
hear-wet-dr
y
……
Experimenting with
water
Water- etc…
Figure 2. Target words in teacher-driven programme.
Playing with water
Goal: the children repeat previously learned concepts by playing with
water
Put an empty water table with one or more basins or buckets in the classroom or
on the play ground. Do the activity with the whole group by giving children
assignments by turns, or let small groups of children experiment with the
materials. Let the children help with filling the buckets with water from the tap
and emptying these in the water table and basins. Say for example the following:
We are going to play with water
Where can we take water?
Do you hear the water streaming into the bucket?
Feel, is the water warm or cold?
Add a little bit of warm water
Does the water feel like a nice temperature now?
Translated from Van Kuyk, 2001, page 83
Figure 1. Activity description for vocabulary learning (from Piramide
manual).
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In different empirical evaluations it was demonstrated that the chil-
dren that have been involved in this programme have generally better
scores on standardized tests than a competing reference programme
(Kaleidoscoop) that gives more room to the children’s own activities and
experiences in learning. According to Dutch standards, the Piramide pro-
gramme gives quite good results on the standardized tests, developed by
this same institute (CITO). The longer the children have been involved
in the programme the better the results, as compared to the Dutch
national norms. The tests used are mainly based on formal paper and
pencil tasks, consisting of questions to which a standard answer must be
given (in a multiple-choice like way).
A play-based approach to vocabulary learning
Vocabulary development in ‘Developmental Education’ takes place in the
context of activities in which the pupils and teacher are involved as partic-
ipants in different roles. In playing out their roles the children encounter
different communicative problems, e.g. in communicating with other roles
in the activity: doctor with the patient, shop keeper with client, bus driver
with passenger or mechanic or person from the gas station, museum
director with visitors, etc. In playing out these scenario’s the need for new
relevant words frequently arises. As explained by Bruner (1983), new
words are usually learned as means for better regulating the joint activity.
This is what happens in ‘Developmental Education’-classrooms with
regard to vocabulary development. The development of the activity in the
project is not based on prescribed tasks, but on the basis of meaningful
self-assignments of the pupils in negotiation with other participants in the
activity (including the teacher). Through participating in the activity the
teacher can of course use the impulse tool and deepen or elaborate the
activity to a certain extent by asking questions, raising problems, or just
using new tools and relevant words, that the children can appropriate by
imitation within the context of the current activity. As an example, picture
the following situation, where the teacher is employing different impulses
for the promotion of vocabulary learning: when participating in the chil-
dren’s ‘kitchen-play’, the teacher can direct the children’s actions to spe-
cific objects or actions. When the children are making apple-pie, the
teachers suggests for example: ‘we have to take these little lumps out of
the flour’. A child responds: ‘yes we need this thing with the little wholes’.
Teacher: ‘All right, we need a sieve’. In the following activity the teacher
uses this word several times and the children can actively use and appro-
priate this word during this activity. It is clear that the teacher cannot
stick rigidly to a pre-determined list of ‘words-to-learn’, but she is not
completely at the mercy of coincidences. The teacher can regulate the
shared activities and optimize the chance of emergence of needs for spe-
cific words. This is what a teacher in the Developmental Education-pro-
gramme does in her involvement in children’s play activities. In this way,
both teacher and pupils introduce words into the activity that are
unknown for part of the participating pupils. The words that emerge
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during the classroom activities in our research are often not pre-planned
and not emphatically focused on the words in the target list that was the
basis for the pre- and post-test (see below).
Comparing vocabulary learning in two different contexts
Set-up of the study
In her research project, Duijkers (2003) investigated vocabulary learning
in two different classrooms (in two different schools; n= 42). The
dependent variable was defined as the number of new words that pupils
learned from their respective thematic classroom projects. During the
study no special interventions were made (except for the pre- and post-
test measurements).
One of the classrooms followed the Teacher-driven approach of the
Piramide programme (labelled here as T-school), the other was based on
the Play-based approach of Developmental Education (labelled here as
P-school). During the study, both schools continued their teaching as
usual. The above given descriptions of the Teacher-driven and the Play-
based approaches can be taken as valid characterizations of the practices of
these schools’ classroom practices. Actually, the examples given above as
illustrations are taken from both schools’ project-based practices. In the
T-school, the teacher is quite directive with respect to the course of events
in the project; as requested by the programme manual, she demonstrates
objects or events according to the manual and mentions their names; she
asks children to repeat or act according to a given instruction. In the
P-school the teacher serves as a coach and supporter of pupils’ actions.
When children encounter a problem or use an object, the teacher examines
if they can explain what they are doing, know the name; the teacher assists
the pupils in the accomplishment of their activity and enriches pupils’
vocabulary where she thinks it is possible, required or solicited by the
pupils.
The school that followed the Piramide-program (T-school) was
selected for this study as it applied the Piramide approach validly, closely
following the teacher-driven projects from the manual, as described
above. The Developmental Education (P-school) school included in the
research project was acknowledged as a good practice for Developmental
Education, applying the approach since 11 years. This school also worked
strictly along the lines of the play-based curriculum, as described above.
The schools couldn’t be selected randomly from a larger pool, as there
were not many schools available at the moment of the research, which
met the desired matching criteria of region, proportion of second language
learners, years of experience with the educational concept, and compara-
ble contents.
Both schools were located in an urban environment in the west of
the Netherlands (T-school in Haarlem and P-school in Amsterdam). In
the T-school 20 pupils between the ages of 4–6 participated; in the
P-school 22 pupils of the same age range participated. No selection of
pupils within the class was made. All pupils participated in the study.
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Both schools had an ethnically mixed population, but the number of
pupils who learned Dutch as a second language (DSL) was bigger on
school T than on school P: 12 (60%) vs 7 (32%). Both schools had
ample experience with their respective approaches. Teachers in both
conditions were female and with regard to their expertise in working
with the respective approaches, the participating teachers could be
considered equally experienced.
The study was set up as a comparative study on the basis of a pre-
test—3 week practice—post-test design. Pupils in the T and P conditions
were compared with regard to active and passive mastery of a set of theme-
related target words, as well as with regard to the development of semantic
content of these words as a result of the schooling at the two different
schools. The performances of the pupils with regard to vocabulary develop-
ment on both schools were both quantitatively and qualitatively analysed.
Despite our careful attempts to match the schools as much as possi-
ble, there were still a number of differences between the schools. We will
address these problems in a special section below (Methodological note).
A methodological note
It is a well-know fact that experimental analysis of educational
programmes in ecologically valid contexts like classroom practices has
inherent methodological problems, regarding the control of all possible
distinctive variables. In practice, complete control through a-select sam-
pling and randomization mostly turns out to be impossible, and we have
to confine ourselves to those variables that are supposed to be relevant on
the basis of the theory, and on which information is available or can be
gathered.
In our research project it turned out to be impossible to find two
schools with different educational programmes (P and T), that were iden-
tical on all other relevant variables. We had to make the choice between
not doing the research at all, or doing the research with the best possible
conditions (although not ideal). In our case we chose schools that were
available in the same urban region, and that seemed comparable on face.
However, these schools unfortunately turned out to have different num-
bers of ethnic minority children. We have taken this into account in the
statistical analyses.
Moreover, when using existing classrooms at different schools,
researchers did not have the possibility to determine the content of the
lessons during the research period. Consequently, both schools were
involved in different types of activities and subject matters. At the start
of our research project, the schools had already made their yearly plan-
ning. It turned out to be impossible to find schools that work on the
same theme in the same period. Piramide schools (T-school) have pro-
jects of 3 weeks, while schools working with Developmental Education
(P-school) generally work for 6 weeks on a theme. At the time of the
study the T-school had to be engaged in a project on water; the
P-school had planned a project on the kitchen. So it was impossible to
harmonize the classrooms with regard to the themes they were working
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on during the study. As described above, we made the situations com-
parable by measuring the number of new words that pupils learned from
their respective projects.
The problems mentioned should warn us against drawing too sweep-
ing conclusions, but in our view it is possible to interpret the outcomes
cautiously as piecemeal evidence in a broader argument about vocabulary
learning in different classroom conditions.
Implementation
Due to the different contents, we could not work with a common set of
target words on which both classrooms could be tested (in pre- and
post-test), as this would result in a set of words detached from the pupils’
current activities, or place one or the other school in a less favourable
position. Therefore, we decided to test the pupils on their knowledge of
highly frequent theme-related words. For the T-classroom we adopted the
words (26) suggested by the programme. For each of these words the fre-
quency of occurrence (FO) in the whole population of 6-year-old Dutch
speaking children was determined with the help of the normalized taxon-
omy (Schaerlakens et al. 1999) which lists the frequency of occurrence of
words in the passive vocabulary of Dutch and Flemish children at the
transition from grade 2 to 3 (5–6 to 6–7 years of age). For the P-class-
room we identified 26 words that were related to the Kitchen and that
matched the FO of the words in the water project. With the help of this
frequency list we could take care that all children were tested on the mas-
tery of theme-related words that had the same level of frequency in everyday
usage, and prevent that children in one group would be tested on words
that were more (or less) difficult than the words in the other group. The
mean FO of the target words in the T-group was 85.5%; in the P-group
it was 82.5%.
All children were individually pre-tested on the mastery of the theme-
related target words during the first week of the study (for procedure see
below). Then, during a 3-week period the classrooms carried out their
respective projects (according to their respective educational philosophies).
Finally the children were again tested (post-test) for their mastery of the
theme-related target words. So the investigation at each school took 5
weeks. Both schools were mostly investigated in parallel; there was only a
1-week delay between the schools. The decision to post-test the pupils after
3 weeks was a consequence of the 3-week periods of the projects in the
T-school. We found it important that all children were tested after the
same period of project work, even though this meant that the children from
the P-school were already tested when their project was not yet finished.
Data sources and instruments
In the course of the study the investigator observed each child individually
during 20 minutes in their everyday classroom activities, in order to
gather information about the active use of the target words during the
day. The activities in which the children were observed were randomly
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chosen, and were most of the times not project-linked activities (e.g. during
free play, on the play-ground, etc.).
In the pre- and post-tests both the active and passive knowledge of
the target words was examined in an individual conversation with each
child. For reasons given above, pupils were tested on different target
words. Pupils from the T-condition were tested on the mastery of 26
words related to water. These words were prescribed by the programme,
and included words like (translated in English) sponge, tap, wet, floating,
shower, sinking, spraying, etc.). Pupils in the P-condition were tested on
26 words related to the kitchen. These words were randomly selected
from a frequency list, and included words like: Baking, vegetables, tap,
shopping list, sink, furnace, blending). The words in the P and T lists
were comparable as to frequency of occurrence and the proportion of dif-
ferent categories (verb, noun, adjective).
The procedure in both conditions was identical for each child, and on
pre- and post-test. First the active use of the target words was tested,
mostly with the help of concrete material in order to make the situations
as clear and vivid as possible for the children. So the word ‘sinking’ was
tested with a bowl with water in which a little stone was dropped. The
children were asked to name the phenomenon or event. In a few cases
concrete demonstration was practically impossible (like with ‘showering’);
in those cases pictures were used. After their naming of the event the chil-
dren were invited to tell a bit more about the meaning of the target word,
in order to gather information about the semantic network of that particu-
lar word. We assumed that the active mastery of the target words would
also encompass the passive use. In case the child could not name the phe-
nomenon, event, or object actively, the target word was tested passively
by showing the child four objects and asking for the target word. In the
case that the child did not actively know the name of an event or an
object (e.g. a ‘sponge’), four objects were shown (e.g. soap, washing-up
brush, washrag, sponge), and the child was asked to hand over the
sponge. Of course, the child could answer this question correctly by
exclusion if it happened to know the other words, but this is probably not
an unusual strategy for passive word recognition (see Bloom 2001), that
will be an equal advantage for children in both conditions. The same
procedure and target words were used on the post-test.
The reliability of the pre-tests and post-tests was calculated on the
basis of the collected test data. For all tests on both schools Cronbach a
was calculated and the outcome was always between 0.82–0.95, which is
well above the generally accepted threshold (that Cronbach’s ashould
exceed 0.70 for a reliable test).
The observation material was explored and scored in terms of number
of target words used by the children in their everyday interactions. The
tests were scored for active word knowledge and passive word knowledge.
In order to estimate the scope of the semantic networks associated with
children’s words, the researcher also analysed the children’s talks and nar-
ratives for the occurrence of target words. The narratives of the children
regarding the actively used target words were analysed and scored as the
number of theme-related words that children associated with the target
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words. We considered this as an indicator of the semantic network of the
target word. The more theme-related words they associated spontaneously
with this word, the higher the score, i.e. the greater the extent of the
semantic network. In both pre- and post-test the number of additional
words were counted and valued. It was not necessary that the additional
words were the same on both occasions. The child that explained the word
‘sponge’ on the pre-test with ‘cleaning’ and ‘polishing’ got a score 2 for
the semantic network; this same child mentioned ‘water’, ‘squeezing out’,
‘brushing’, and ‘sopping’ on the post-test and got a score of 4, and the
gain score (4) was calculated on the basis of the new words mentioned dur-
ing the post-test. If the child repeated words from the pre-test, then these
words had not been counted for the gain score on the post-test.
Outcomes
All data were statistically analysed by Duijkers (2003) and with qualitative
methods. The graphs in figure 3 give an overview of the main outcomes.
It is evident from this that the performances of the P-school pupils on the
post-tests are much better that those of the T-school. However, it is also
Overview Pre-test Post-test
8,45
13,45
11,6
19,27
0
5
10
15
20
25
Conditions
Score
Pre-test
Post-test
T-school P-school
Figure 3. Overview of main outcomes (active mastery).
Table 1. Outcomes on pre-test and post-test.
School nMean difference (active) rMean difference (passive) r
T-school 20 3.15 2.033 2.15 1.348
P-school 22 5.82 1.651 3.86 2.054
Statistics p = 0.000 p= 0.003
t=4.687 t=3.161
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clear that (despite our attempts to match the groups in the two condi-
tions) the P-group already scored higher on the pre-test. All differences
turned out to be statistically significant (p= 0.05; t=3.608, df = 40 for
pre-test; t=4863, df = 40 for post-test), both for the active and for the
passive vocabulary mastery. The graph for the passive mastery is omitted,
because it was quite similar to the one here exposed.
In order to evaluate these differences better, difference scores for the
two groups were calculated, which indicate the gains of the groups with
regard to the mastery of the target words. The mean difference scores for
the active and passive mastery are displayed in Table 1.
This table shows that the P-school gained significantly more than the
T-school, but here again we have to be cautious because of a possible
Mathew affect: the P-school might show more progress because it had a
better starting position. In that case the gains of this school may not be
due to the different characters of the two educational approaches. There-
fore we took yet another tack for the evaluation of the outcomes. Through
regression analysis we tried to figure out which factors best predict the
outcomes of the post-test scores on the active and passive vocabulary test.
As predictors we introduced pre-test score, type of education, and DSL.
It turned out that being a pupil who had Dutch as a second language
(DSL) had no significant general effect on the outcomes. The variance of
the post-test scores (active mastery) was mainly explained by the pre-test
score (89.4%); adding the type of education to the regression equation
contributed another 2.6% to the post-test, which is a statistically signifi-
cant contribution (significance Fchange = 0.01). Hence, the play-based
curriculum significantly contributes to the higher scores of these pupils on
the post-test. A similar picture appears for the passive vocabulary (which
will not be specifically discussed here).
An analysis of variance with the pre-test scores as covariant (in order
to correct for the initial differences) confirms this picture: the differences
between the scores on the post-test for both active and passive scores are
significant in favour of the P-school. Moreover, there is a significant
interaction between DSL and type of education (F
active
= 9.186, df = 1;
p= 0.004; F
passive
= 12.694, df = 1, p= 0.001).
Finally, the extent of the semantic networks for the target words in the
two schools were also examined. The mean semantic extent of the pupils
on the T-school was 0.629, while on the P-school it was 2.082. A statistical
analysis of these data showed that the pupils on the P-school have a
significantly greater extent of the semantic network as a result of the type of
education that they have got (t=7.558; df = 40, p= 0.000).
Table 2. Use of theme-related words during activities.
Type of
education
Number of
theme-related
words used during
observations
Mean number of
theme-related word
per child
Number of children not
using any theme-related
words
T-school (n= 20) 13 0.65 12
P-school (n= 22) 147 6.68 1
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From this quantitative analysis we can conclude that children in the
Play-based curriculum (P-school) learned significantly more words during
the 3-week project than the pupils from the Task-based school
(T-school). Moreover, the words that they have learned turn out to be
semantically richer and embedded in a more extensive semantic network.
Presumably this contributes to the usability of these words in the
children’s activities.
A qualitative analysis of the observations of the children (during 20
minutes in varying situations) adds further significance to these findings.
This analysis also shows that there are differences between the pupils
from the two schools with regard to vocabulary acquisition.
Table 2 shows that the children in the play-based curriculum used the
new theme-related words more frequently than the children in the
task-based curriculum. During the observations it was found that the
children in the play-based curriculum were more involved in interactions
than the pupils in the task-based school (frequencies 22 vs 11 times). An
unexpected but remarkable result was that children in the play-based
condition also tended to use the new words on the playground, a
phenomenon that was never observed in the T-based school.
With regard to our research question the outcomes of Duijkers’ study
are relevant, but have to be interpreted with much care. Taking the
methodological weaknesses into account, they suggest a tendency that the
vocabulary learning of children in a play-based curriculum (based on a
meaning driven learning process) is in this study significantly better than
the vocabulary learning of children in the T-curriculum (based on a
teacher-driven approach). Duijkers’ data support our expectations.
Conclusions and discussion
In this article we presented some arguments for a Vygotskian ‘Develop-
mental Education approach’ for the early years of primary school, embod-
ied in a play-based curriculum. The argument went along different lines:
theoretical, practical, and empirical. Starting out from a Vygotskian
approach to learning and development, our data suggest that a concept of
learning can be developed that allows goal-directed teaching and learning
by young children in the context of role-play under the guidance of more
knowledgeable others. Our experiences in implementation processes
emphasize that the education of the teachers is of crucial importance for a
valid implementation. An essential part of this education implies the
appropriation and classroom application of teaching tools that are relevant
for the guidance of pupils in their play activities for the promotion of
meaningful learning.
A number of different empirical studies have already supported the
expectation of the developmental value of the Developmental Education
approach (see for example van Oers (2010b) for the domain of early math
education). The finding of Duijkers (2003) may give further support to
our theoretical expectations regarding vocabulary acquisition: the acquisi-
tion of vocabulary in children in this study is better in an environment that
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gives the pupils opportunities for taking part in meaningful joint activities
(like play) in which the need for new words emerges from the activity,
than when pupils are engaged in tasks that are externally provided and
that prescribe in a strict way what pupils have to do and to learn. This
research provides statistical and qualitative analyses of outcomes from
vocabulary learning processes in two schools in the Netherlands (one
Teacher-driven, one Play-based) and support the claim that in a play-
based curriculum children probably learn more theme-related words with
richer semantic content than in a teacher-driven curriculum.
In task situations (like on the T-school) pupils perform actions that
draw their meaning primarily from the expected local success on this task.
As was evident in our study, when the task was completed, the work
seemed finished for the children and did not provoke further exploration
of the meanings involved, nor transfer to out-of-school situations. It
remains to be seen if the proposed activities in the T-programme will
become genuinely meaningful for the children themselves. Moreover, it is
not clear from these tests to what extent the children’s expanded vocabu-
lary has made them better communicators, or enhances their abilities to
participate in regular sociocultural activities. The character of the ques-
tions in the test is often similar (not identical!) to the kind of tasks and
queries in the programme. It is evident that the Piramide programme has
at least helped the children to perform well on the test.
In a play-based programme, the words are developed as tools for com-
munication and joint exploration and regulation of the activity. The needs
for the new words is not prescribed in this programme but emerges from
the activity itself. The data showed that the children in the play-based
programme often used the target words in their interactions with other
children, and by so doing the children explore the usability of these words
as a means for communicating and interpersonal regulations. The mean-
ings and words become integrated in a meaning system and will develop a
richer network. The progress within the activity is based on the interests
and questions of the pupils themselves, which increases the need for inter-
action and for new words to express their arguments and queries. These
circumstances create ample opportunities for learning and vocabulary
development. Our data suggest that involvement in sociocultural activities
may produce a higher rate of vocabulary development, enrich the seman-
tic network of the words involved, and probably also give a better transfer
to out of school situations. This conclusion, however, must be taken with
great care considering the limitations of the study.
First of all the study is limited due to the number of pupils (n=
42) involved. The number of pupils of this size may reduce the reliabil-
ity of the found statistical differences and raise the chance of accepting
a hypothesis that is actually false. However, the outcome of Duijkers’
study adds up to a number of other studies in different subject matter
domains (e.g. Poland 2007), which at least might suggest a consistent
tendency towards a positive effects of teaching in a play-based curricu-
lum. Further studies with a bigger number of pupils are needed to prove
that pupils in a play-based approach outperform pupils from teacher-dri-
ven approaches.
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Another methodological limitation relates to the differences in content
in the two programmes. It is still possible that the difference in the
themes in the two schools might have been caused by the difference in
outcomes. Hence, it could be that the theme ‘Kitchen’ by itself is seman-
tically more prone to using and learning new words than the theme
‘water’. However, children presumably do have equal opportunities to get
experience with both of them on a regular daily basis. Observations in
both programmes do not show differences in involvement of the children
in the respective activities. At this moment we do not have substantial
reasons to presume that the differences of the theme may have caused the
differences on the post-tests, but replication of the study with the same
theme in both conditions would be necessary to figure this out precisely.
In a Dutch discussion, the play-based approach was once criticized as
being unstructured and too open. Allegedly, this would harm the at-risk
children, as the necessary high-frequency words then will probably not be
explicitly taught to them. Duijkers research shows, however, that the at-risk
children (here: DSL pupils) profitted more from this play-based (meaning
driven) approach than from the Task-based programme. The activities in
which the children are involved come from the everyday world that—by def-
inition—call for the high frequency words. We assume that it may not be
the goal-directed tasks imposed onto children that make them learn and
develop vocabulary in an optimal way, but the appeal on their personal
meanings and their abilities to take part in joint sociocultural activities.
Combined with other research outcomes (see for example van Oers
2003; 2010a, b), we wish to end with assuming that our study gives fur-
ther support to the expectation that the concept of play as a format of
activities that allows some freedom to the players, supports awareness of
rules, and stimulates authentic engagement, is a promising concept for
contexts of meaningful learning and teaching for young children. As we
have seen, teaching in the context of play can be possible and productive.
This is what we elaborate and implement in our work on the Develop-
mental Education approach in the entire primary education curriculum. It
is our group’s future challenge to substantiate this claim with theoretical
elaborations, practical provisions, and further empirical research.
Notes
1. For the transliteration of Russian names we apply the international UN1987
standard. However, for the sake of easy recognition we have adopted author
names of well-established works unchanged, even if this introduces a slight incon-
sistency in the appearance of names.
2. Translated from the Russian original by the author.
3. In Dutch these schools are called ‘Ontwikkelingsgericht Onderwijs’. The specific
programme for the Early grades is on the market as ‘Basisontwikkeling’ (Basic
Development).
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