Preschool children's joint block building during a guided play activity

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Highlights

  • We observed preschool dyads during a guided block play activity.

  • Girls included more structural features of a house in their buildings than boys.

  • Children's building behavior predicted the complexity of their structures.

  • Coordinated action mediated relations between spatial talk and building performance.

Abstract

Although children build in block areas both individually and jointly, little is known about the nature of children's behavior and communication in this play context with peers. We observed 4- and 5-year-old same-age, same-sex dyads (n = 38) during a guided play activity, which involved building a house with large colorful blocks. We analyzed children's communication and building behaviors, as well as the role of their coordinated behavior in the structures that they built. Children's spatial talk was associated with the features of a house included in structures, whereas children's building behavior was associated with the complexity of the structures. However, children's coordinated behavior during the interaction mediated the relations between spatial talk and the structures they built. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of encouraging joint guided block play activities in early childhood classrooms to provide children with opportunities to practice and expand their language, math, and spatial skills.

Section snippets

Block building during the preschool years

Children's ability to create sophisticated structures with blocks develops during the preschool and school-age years. Reifel and Greenfield (1982) describe how the spatial relations within children's buildings, defined as “the dimensionality” and “hierarchical integration of block constructions,” become more complex with age. Structures of toddlers and young preschoolers are typically limited in their spatial dimensionality, with structures being mainly composed of a single block or several

Participants

Participants were 76 preschool children: Forty 4-year-olds (M = 4 years 5 months, SD = 0.30; with 50% girls) and thirty-six 5-year-olds (M = 5 years 4 months, SD = 0.23; with 50% girls). Children were recruited primarily from child-care centers in a medium-sized city. The centers serve families who are predominantly middle class; 87% were Caucasian, 10% Asian, and 3% Hispanic. Participants were recruited for a larger study on peer cooperation that involved two sessions (Ramani, 2012). Children's

Results

The analyses are divided into four sections. First, the descriptive statistics of the children's structures, peer communication, and building behavior are presented. Second, gender differences in the structures the children built, the peer communication, and building measures are reported using t-tests and multivariate analyses of variances (MANOVAs). Third, correlations are used to examine the associations between children's talk, building behavior, and structures. Fourth, hierarchical linear

Discussion

The goal of this study was to examine preschool-aged children's peer communication and building behaviors during a guided block building activity with a same-age, same-sex peer. Specifically, we were interested in examining the processes involved in preschoolers' construction of a house, including their individual block placements, and how they communicated and coordinated their efforts throughout the interaction with their building partner. We also examined whether gender differences existed

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