Spatial Language of Young Children During Block Play in Kindergartens in Urban China

Abstract

Spatial language is an important predictor of spatial skills and might be inspired by peer interaction and goal-oriented building behaviors during block play. The present study investigated the frequency, type and level of children’s spatial language during block play and their associations with the level of block play by observing 228 young children in classrooms equipped with unit blocks and allowing free play on a daily basis. The findings showed that during block play, young children used more words about spatial locations, deictic terms, dimensions, and shapes and fewer words about spatial features or properties and spatial orientations or transformations. Spatial locations were used most frequently, and young children tended to use vertical location words to represent the corresponding location. Most young children used gestures in conjunction with spatial deictic terms. Among shape words, tetragon words were frequently used, and the representation of spatial shapes showed alternatives, collective tendencies and gender differences. The use of spatial language during the play process had a significant positive correlation with age, the construction structure, and form of block building.

Malleability of spatial skills: bridging developmental psychology and toy design for joyful STEAM development

“…Designing play interactions is as important as designing the physical properties of the toys ( Wooldridge and Shapka, 2012 ; Black et al, 2016 ; Yamada-Rice, 2018 ) (design recommendation 3). For instance, one of the major strengths of construction toys is to promote spatial talk during play sessions ( Ferrara et al, 2011 ; Levine et al, 2012 ; Yang and Pan, 2021 ) and various toys tend to elicit spatial language in different amounts ( Verdine et al, 2014 ). There is a link between spatial language use and improvement in mental rotation skill ( Polinsky et al, 2017 ; Ralph et al, 2020 ; Turan et al, 2021 ).…”

Theme-Based Block Play Intervention Facilitates Chinese Preschoolers’ Language Development: A Quasi-Experiment

“…During block plays, children can gain plenty of vocabulary and extensive language practice by conceptualizing meanings about their surrounding world and understanding the preliminary literacy activities generated by block plays ( Christakis et al, 2007 ; Cohen and Uhry, 2007 ; Ferrara et al, 2011 ). Yang and Pan (2021) explored children’s spatial language use during block play and their associations with the level of block play by observing their daily free play with blocks in the classroom. They found block play can facilitate young children to produce a variety of spatial language, including spatial locations, deictic terms, dimensions, shapes, and so on.…”

“…Yet, there is a dearth of evidence on the feasibility of block play as a playful learning activity in the early years, especially in the Chinese context. Furthermore, although previous studies have established a link between block play and spatial language (see Yang and Pan, 2021 ), no study has examined whether and how early interventions on theme-based block play are related to later language development in a school setting. Thus, this study aimed to examine the effect of theme-based block play on Chinese children’s language development to fill the gap.…”