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Do Children Learn Through Play? How Do We Know?

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Nordic Families, Children and Early Childhood Education

Part of the book series: Studies in Childhood and Youth ((SCY))

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Abstract

In this chapter, the value of children’s play for learning is considered by exploring their learning processes in two different Icelandic early childhood contexts. In order to make these processes explicit, detailed descriptions are provided of how children learned as they participated in the daily activities of their respective preschools. Hopefully, this close look at children’s play might give some insight into an ongoing debate regarding what and how children are learning and whether their learning needs to be assessed. The findings of this study add to the extensive research that has shown the importance of play for young children’s learning. Given the debates over the goals and nature of young children’s preschool experiences, these issues are addressed in light of policy, both nationally and internationally.

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Dr. Liz Brooker who supported and supervised the first part of the work on the study this chapter builds on.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland

    Kristín Karlsdóttir & Johanna Einarsdottir

  2. State University of New York, Geneseo, NY, USA

    Leigh O’Brien

Authors
  1. Kristín Karlsdóttir
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  2. Leigh O’Brien
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  3. Johanna Einarsdottir
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Correspondence to Kristín Karlsdóttir .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Susanne Garvis , Sonja Sheridan  & Pia Williams ,  & 

  2. Nord University, Bodø, Norway

    Heidi Harju-Luukkainen

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Karlsdóttir, K., O’Brien, L., Einarsdottir, J. (2019). Do Children Learn Through Play? How Do We Know?. In: Garvis, S., Harju-Luukkainen, H., Sheridan, S., Williams, P. (eds) Nordic Families, Children and Early Childhood Education. Studies in Childhood and Youth. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16866-7_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16866-7_3

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-16865-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-16866-7

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