Integrating Guided Play and Hands-On Learning: Insights and Application
“ The Pedagogy Bends Around Each Child”
Reflections on Incorporating Guided Play Throughout the Day
Editors’ Note
Lauren Fleming works with Deaf and hard-of-hearing children in a prekindergarten classroom in the Dallas Independent School District in Texas. She teaches to a variety of strengths and areas of growth: Children enter the program on their third birthdays; some wear cochlear implants or hearing aids, some use American Sign Language, and many are acquiring language through multiple modalities.
Guided play is a key way that Lauren addresses children’ s language, academic, and Individualized Education Program( IEP) goals. Following, she shares how she designs guided play experiences to scaffold children’ s learning, how she assesses children’ s progress, and how she embeds guided play into a prescribed curriculum.
36 Young Children
Fall 2026