101 uses for play people Kathleen Cavin Dec 08 Act out script with play people and have children take on play people roles. Devised by Catherine Roberts based on work by Paul Catherall Originally used to develop interactive language based play. structure play interactions represent knowledge of social events provide a bridge between solitary and interactive based play build a repertoire of playscripts However also useful for… - Developing narrative skills Support understanding of story grammar Support understanding of classroom texts Develop problem resolution Support character development –how the character feels etc Develop story retell Practicing new grammatical constructions, script about little girl who keeps asking questions Practising new vocabulary/concepts in context, e.g, playscript around buying flowers for science unit on plants Practice asking for clarification in a role play. Negotiable Organising Statements Definition of situation- “let’s play..” Assignment of roles – “I’ll be ....and you be...” Defining location “this is the...” Action plan “I’ll do this and you ..” Assigning props “this is my..” Refining the script “mummies don’t..” Refining others’ performance “you have to .” Early Stages Use events in the child’s experience Roughly same amount of talk per character Use repetitive phrases Initially only use 2-3 characters Use phrases from previous frames Use tragic/funny events! Use symbolic noise Use story grammar categories – main event/reaction/resolution Don’t insist on word perfect lines Later Stages Build in lots of repetition of target Build in opportunities for retelling, “the shopkeeper said, “What happened?” Build in opportunities for clarification Use play people – don’t give them names or props in the early stages State character and setting at beginning State clearly it’s the adults turn to talk Use different voices, exaggerated intonation and symbolic noise Take role or guide pupil initially Before they start ask, “who are you?”/”where are you?” Ideas for Targets To be able to take a non-verbal role in a familiar playscript on 3 separate occasions To be able to initiate talk 3 times in a familiar playscript To be able to respond twice to a peer in a familiar playscript on 3 separate occasions To be able to generate dialogue to solve a problem in a playscript To be able to say how a character is feeling in a playscript References Catherall P (1998) Facilitating narrative competence :helping children to describe events and tell stories NAPLIC Conference Papers 1998- (available to order www.naplic.org)