The Play’s the Thing: Associations between Make-Believe Play and Self-Regulation in the Tools of the Mind Early Childhood Curriculum

ABSTRACT

Make-believe play has been theorized to promote self-regulation skills and other positive child outcomes. In this study, we examine the make-believe play approach featured in the Tools of the Mind (Tools) early childhood curriculum, which identifies students’ self-regulation cultivation among its core programmatic aims. Using data from 42 classrooms in the United States, we specified latent growth models to investigate the association between Tools make-believe play and children’s self-regulation development throughout pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and first grade (N = 646 students aged between four and seven years old). We found that higher implementation frequency and fidelity of Tools play predicted less self-regulation growth. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Dr. James Hall who assisted with the modeling strategy used in this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), United States Department of Education, under grant R305A0903533. The opinions expressed here belong to the authors alone and do not represent the Institute of Education Sciences or the United States Department of Education.