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Understanding Children
Renowned child psychologist Dr Kathy Hirsh-Pasek speaks on the value of guided play
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Freya Lucas
Mar 19, 2025
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Dr Kathy Hirsh-Pasek has a global reputation for her insights on child psychology and play based learning, recently visiting Australia for the first time to share her insights at a Western Sydney University.
She also serves as the Senior Fellow on the Psychology Advisory Team for Australian early childhood education and care (ECEC) provider MindChamps.The Sector was thankful for the opportunity to interview Dr Hirsh-Pasek to learn more about her perspective on why guided play is the optimal way to develop confident and curious minds.
What is guided play?
Guided play, Dr Hirsh-Pasek explained, sits midway between direct instruction and free play.
“It harnesses all the joy and discovery of play but does so within a context that’s a little bit performed so the kids (sic.) discover and explore,” she said.
“The research shows very clearly that children learn better in guided play, especially young children. In the context of the classroom, a child might be learning to go through a book about the green monster who’s grumpy, but also what is grumpy? What would it mean if you weren’t grumpy?”
“So it’s about context and perhaps moving into a song where they got the grumps out by singing about it. So you’ve added reading and learning vocabulary to the mix. The song itself has beats, which is adding in math and emotion, all wrapped up in a big, beautiful lesson in context.”
In guided play, she continued, children take the lead and the teachers set the context.
Play and language are inextricably linked
The link between language learning and play is especially pressing in the modern age, Dr Hirsh-Pasek said, because “we have co-opted away social interaction through using screens.”
Recently released data showed that in the United States at least 40 per cent of children aged two years and under have their own tablet devices, “which means they are looking at a screen and not into the eyes of a parent.”
Australian researchers have suggested that when children are engaged with devices they are hearing less language to language interaction, while also experiencing a decline in social interaction, something which Dr Hirsh-Pasek said is “a killer for language.”
Play of all kinds, including guided play, can serve as an antidote to a screen heavy early childhood, offering children opportunities to meaningfully engage and connect with their caregivers and to develop language skills at the same time.
Play and the early childhood curriculum
There are some pervasive myths and misconceptions when it comes to the intersection of play and curriculum in the early childhood space, including that “one size fits all” when it comes to program planning, or that programs must be exclusively driven by children’s emergent interests.
For Dr Hirsh - Pasek, one of the most pervasive myths is that curriculum means “everything should be academic with capital A and that we should dumb down second grade and put it into preschool curriculum.”
This, she said, is absolutely not what should happen.
“What we should do instead is use preschool curriculum (reading, numeracy and the way we teach) and expand it by bumping it up to first, second, third, fourth, all the way through college.”
“MindChamps has done a really good job in the professional training and also what they’re doing in the classroom,” she continued.
“What you see are inquisitive, excited, engaged children who are asking questions, who are participating, who are looking to go to the next step in their learning. And I think that’s really invigorating and it’s not something you see a lot.”
Dr Hirsh-Pasek is a world leading expert in play based learning and child developmental skills and go-to point of authority in the space for US talk shows, having written more than 17 books and authored 250+ publications on education and child development.
Learn more about her work, including Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children and Einstein Never Used Flashcards here.
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