Prioritizing play offers a variety of benefits for children, from helping them grow their vocabulary to managing their big feelings with fewer behavioral problems.

Play also benefits children’s cognitive and social and emotional development.

But play isn’t always a focus in classrooms, even when it comes to very young children.

My colleagues and I conducted a study in 2019 and 2020 to understand how children from our own play-based lab preschool in Charleston, South Carolina, transitioned to formal schooling for kindergarten or first grade.

Some families at our school, which serves kids ages 2 through 6, choose to keep their child enrolled there for kindergarten. Others leave to have their children complete kindergarten in a more traditional school setting.

We found that attending a play-based early childhood program helped children develop emotional regulation, social awareness and problem-solving skills later on in elementary school.

Preparing children for school and life

Research conducted in 2015 found that children who attended a play-based preschool program scored higher on measures of vocabulary and use of grammar, compared to peers who attended a more traditional preschool program.

Another group of researchers conducted in-depth interviews in 2021 with the parents and kindergarten teachers of four children who had attended a play-based preschool. The three kindergarten teachers described the children as self-directed and eager to learn. One teacher spoke of the children’s open-mindedness. The children were also described as adept at navigating social situations, compassionate and........

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