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Home REL Northeast & Islands About REL Northeast & Islands New Hampshire Partnership to Increase Early Learning Outcomes through Play
New Hampshire Partnership to Increase Early Learning Outcomes through Play
The New Hampshire Partnership aims to improve the quality and consistency of play-based learning practices, and to ensure equity of access to high-quality play-based learning in kindergarten classrooms across the state. High-quality early-childhood education is linked to long-term educational and social gains.1, 2 Play-based learning, in particular, has been shown to improve children’s literacy, math, and social-emotional outcomes.3, 4, 5 Play-based learning in Early Childhood Education is an ongoing initiative within New Hampshire through its Preschool Development Birth Through Five Grant and is required in all state kindergarten programs as a result of recent New Hampshire legislation (Bill 1499 [2018]). REL Northeast & Islands is partnering with the New Hampshire Department of Education (NHDOE), to support the adoption, scale-up, and evaluation of play-based learning practices in kindergarten classrooms across the state.
Specifically, REL Northeast & Islands will support the NHDOE in their effort to measure kindergarten teachers’ understanding and implementation of play-based learning practices. This work includes a review of the literature pertaining to measuring play-based learning and other kindergarten classroom interventions, an inventory of the data currently collected in New Hampshire to measure play-based learning practices, and support to develop and administer new instruments and data collection processes aimed to measure implementation of play-based learning in the state’s kindergarten classrooms. REL Northeast & Islands proposes to use data from this implementation measurement initiative to conduct a descriptive study of play-based learning practices across the state. Finally, REL Northeast & Islands and its partners will co-develop a dissemination plan that includes a fact sheet about the evidence on play-based learning, a blog about the status of early childhood education in New Hampshire and how the REL’s projects will address gaps in knowledge and practice through the partnership, and additional products to share the study findings.
Partner Organizations: New Hampshire Department of Education, New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, University of New Hampshire, Manchester School District, Concord Unified School District
1 Conti, G., Heckman, J. J., & Pinto, R. (2016). The effects of two influential early childhood interventions on health and healthy behaviour. Economic Journal, 126(596), F28–F65. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12420
2 McCoy, D. C., Yoshikawa, H., Ziol-Guest, K. M., Duncan, G. J., Schindler, H. S., Magnuson, K., Yang, R., Koepp, A., Shonkoff, J. P. (2017). Impacts of early childhood education on medium- and long-term educational outcomes. Educational Researcher, 46(8), 474–487. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X17737739
3 Stagnitti, K., Bailey, A., Hudspeth Stevenson, E., Reynolds, E., & Kidd, E. (2016). An investigation into the effect of play-based instruction on the development of play skills and oral language. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 14(4), 389–406.
4 Vogt, F., Hauser, B., Stebler, R., Rechsteiner, K., & Urech, C. (2018). Learning through play–pedagogy and learning outcomes in early childhood mathematics. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 26(4), 589–603.
5 Zosh, J. M., Hopkins, E. J., Jensen, H., Liu, C., Neale, D., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Solis, S. L. & Whitebread, D. (2017). Learning through play: A review of the evidence. The Lego Foundation, DK.
Current Projects
This study will use data generated by the implementation measurement project to describe play-based learning practices in kindergarten classrooms across New Hampshire. Specifically, it will provide decision-makers with information about kindergarten teachers’ familiarity with and implementation of play-based learning practices in their classrooms and about administrators’ familiarity with and support for play-based learning in their schools. District and state leaders will use the study results to make decisions about how to design and allocate coaching and professional development resources to strengthen play-based learning practices across the state or in areas of greatest need.
No completed projects at this time.
REL Northeast & Islands Logic Model (242 KB)
