with Houseman 1999). Role-playing supports children’ s use of language, vocabulary, turn taking, storytelling, and comprehension( Ripstein 2019; Rand & Morrow 2021). Both activities can provide important insights and anecdotal data about children’ s progress toward learning targets( McDonald 2019).
Introducing Games and Role-Playing
Mr. Ridgley’ s class is working on retelling stories. Orion makes his way to a waterfilled tub at the front of the classroom. He reaches for the plastic cow that his classmate, Yvelsi, is holding and says,“ Just look at you! In the tub you go!” As Yvelsi places the cow in the tub, Orion sings,“ In went the cow, wishy washy, wishy washy!” Next comes a plastic pig, followed by a plastic duck.
All of these animals are part of Mrs. Wishy Washy, a story by Joy Cowley that Mr. Ridgley has read to the children.“ I noticed you have the animals in the tub,” he says as Orion and Yvelsi play.“ Can you tell me the order they went in?” As the children share, Mr. Ridgley compares their sequencing to the one in the book.
Through games( as in the opening vignette) or role-playing, educators can scaffold children’ s thinking and learning( Vogt et al. 2018). Engaging children in these activities has many benefits: Games promote community and autonomy as well as number sense and strategic thinking( Kamii,
Workstations or centers are logical times for educators to offer primary-grade children the materials, time, and space for role-playing. Mr. Ridgley intentionally included a role-playing spot in his classroom to encourage children to act out and retell the story of Mrs. Wishy Washy. In addition to the plastic animals, he offered puppets, other props, and picture cards so that children could engage with their peers in multiple ways. As they played, he provided prompts, questions, and guidance( asking children to retell the beginning, middle, and end of a story; encouraging them to act out the story’ s problem and how it was resolved; prompting them to describe a character’ s feelings).
Retelling stories is an evidence-based approach for building comprehension that helps children develop sequencing skills while strengthening their memory for story details( Foorman et al. 2016). It also builds vocabulary and can set the foundation for recognizing a story’ s plot and characters( Foorman et al. 2016; Rand & Morrow 2021). Mr. Ridgley’ s guided play activity aligned with the reading component of Tennessee’ s English Language Arts Standards for first grade: For literature, to“ retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson”( Tennessee State Board of Education 2019, 30).
As children made connections, organized ideas, and demonstrated their understanding of Mrs. Wishy Washy, Mr. Ridgley assessed their learning through observations and asking questions. Sometimes, children used the classroom laptop to record their retellings, providing additional evidence of their understanding of a text.
48 Young Children
Fall 2026