The Key to Early Literacy? Let Them Play.
This week's feature comes from Stacy Benge, writing for Exchange Press (exchangepress.com), a short piece worth reading in full, because it puts words to something many of us know but our busy schedules can get in the way: child-led play is the foundation of early literacy.
There is no shortage of research and books telling us play matters for early healthy childhood development. And yet, when I look at how busy our young families really are, I find myself asking, how much time is actually left for children to just play? Not a scheduled activity. Not an enrichment class. Just play, led by them, on their own terms.
“Play is the highest form of engagement a child has access to. It's how they excavate ideas, test the world, and build trust, not only with the people around them, but with themselves. Every single day, science meets our lived experience in real time: you can watch it happen on any playground, in any pile of blocks, in any pretend kitchen made of couch cushions.”
Here's the part worth sitting with: child-led play builds the foundations for future reading and writing, and it doesn't have to look anything like reading or writing. We tend to assume literacy-building play means alphabet magnets, flashcards, or story time. But all play does this work. Stacking, negotiating roles in pretend games, building a fort, arguing over the rules of tag, all of it strengthens the same muscles children will later use to decode language, construct meaning, and tell their own stories.
Play doesn't prepare the whole child for literacy. Play is how the whole child develops, literacy included. So, here's the invitation this week: make space. Real, protected, unhurried space.
That might mean:
Skipping a season of Little League, or a couple of birthday parties, so a weekend stays open.
Trading rides with other parents so you're not the one shuttling to every practice, freeing up an afternoon for nothing in particular.
Treating weekends and vacations as sacred, unscheduled time that belongs to your child's imagination, not your calendar.
None of this asks you to do more. It asks you to protect less-is-more. Give your child the time, and trust that the learning will follow. Read Stacy Benge's full piece https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:0b2d66be-e2e6-4bd5-bf6f-144c1a1c4a21