What research says about learning through play

When I say I work through play, half the adults hear “nothing is being learned” and the other half hear “a modern method”. Neither is right, and the difference is not a matter of opinion — there is a literature.

I have gathered here what seems worth knowing to a parent or a head teacher who has to decide whether it is worth it. It is not a complete review. It is what I use to know what I am doing.

The document that changed the conversation

In September 2018 the American Academy of Pediatrics published a clinical report called The Power of Play, by Yogman, Garner, Hutchinson, Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff. It matters not because it says something new but because of who is saying it: this is clinical guidance addressed to paediatricians, not a pedagogical manifesto.

The central conclusion: play shapes brain structure and function and supports the development of executive function — the very capacities school later depends on, namely holding attention, delaying an impulse, and switching between tasks.

The part I quote most often in conversations with parents is the other one: the report shows that when play and safe, stable, nurturing relationships are missing from a child’s life, toxic stress can disrupt the development of executive function and the learning of prosocial behaviour. So play is not a bonus added once the serious work is done. Its absence has a cost.

The report’s practical recommendation became well known too: paediatricians are encouraged to prescribe play at well visits, much as they prescribe reading.

The evidence from 18 countries

The other source I use comes from a different corner: the LEGO Foundation gathered into one report the evidence from early childhood programmes run in 18 locations around the world, drawing on 26 studies plus interviews with their authors.

The question it answers is not “is play good” but a more practical one: does play matter more for children who start at a disadvantage? The report’s title — Learning Through Play: Increasing Impact, Reducing Inequality — indicates where the data point.

It is also worth watching what happens in policy rather than only in studies. In 2024, in Kigali, the Africa Foundational Learning Exchange recognised learning through play as a critical educational intervention for the first time — a threshold methods rarely cross. Also from 2024, the LEGO Foundation programme Playful Learning Across the Years is developing observation tools to measure the quality of play-based learning in crisis-affected contexts in Bangladesh, Sierra Leone and Uganda.

That last detail interests me most. When a field starts building instruments to measure quality, it has left the enthusiasm phase.

What “play” means in these studies

Here is the trap. “Play” does not mean any activity that is not a lesson.

The literature generally describes the play that produces learning as: chosen by the child, meaningful to them, mentally active, repeated with variation and, often, social. A child handed a colouring sheet and told “let’s play” is not playing. They are doing a worksheet.

That distinction is why not every programme calling itself “through play” produces what it promises. The practical test I use: if a child can change the rule and the activity still makes sense, it is play. If changing the rule breaks the activity, it was a task in disguise.

What the research does not say

It does not say lessons are useless. It does not say any play-based programme beats any structured one. And above all, it does not say that results obtained in two-year early childhood programmes are obtained in a two-hour workshop.

I work at workshop scale. I use the literature to know what to put in and what to leave out — not as proof that what I do produces the effects in the studies. That would be an extrapolation nobody can support.

If you want the practical side rather than the bibliography, the talk topics I can bring to parents or teaching teams are set out separately, and so are the events I run for children.

Sources

• Yogman M, Garner A, Hutchinson J, Hirsh-Pasek K, Golinkoff RM — The Power of Play: A Pediatric Role in Enhancing Development in Young Children, Pediatrics, September 2018, 142(3):e20182058
• LEGO Foundation — Learning Through Play: Increasing Impact, Reducing Inequality (26 studies, 18 locations)
• LEGO Foundation — Playful Learning Across the Years, research programme, 2024
• Africa Foundational Learning Exchange, Kigali, 2024