Free play a ‘lost opportunity’ for young kids

FREE unstructured play is a waste of time for kids and babies and children could be doing much more at childcare and kindergarten, according to one Australian educator.

Matilda, 2, revels in her learning sessions. Picture: Alex Coppel

FREE unstructured play is a waste of time for kids and babies, an Australian educator says.

The “free-choice, open-ended play with no rules” that dominates childcare and kindergartens was a missed opportunity for crucial learning, according to Shiaoling Lim, the managing director of Shichida Australia.

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“It’s not common practice in Australia to introduce any structured learning to children under four and this is a mistake that is costing down the track,” she said. “They shouldn’t just do free play all the time but many parents and teachers like it because it is what they had growing up.”

Shichida, a Japanese early learning method, teaches numeracy and literacy to babies as young as six months.

“Babies that young can learn about numbers by using an abacus and songs and toys associated with Roman numerals,” Ms Lim said.

“Parents can also become educators and turn everyday achievements into learning.”

She said it was reasonable to expect most children aged four or five to read an analog clock, do basic maths, use up to 300 flashcards and recite Pi to 100 places.

“Children require a huge amount of stimulation when their brains are growing the fastest — stimulation they just don’t get from free play alone,” she said.

Ms Lim — who has a masters degree in education — said parents and teachers could introduce literacy and numeracy to play spaces like sandpits via phonics, counting and numbers.

Suzanne Shakespeare, an opera singer from Mulgrave, takes her daughter Matilda, 2, to Shichida.

“She does a 50-minute class once a week and it’s filled with a lot of information and education. She loves it,” she said.

Ms Lim’s comments on free play go against much professional advice, which is to let children do more free play. The Raising Children Network advises free play is important to stimulate creativity and imagination.

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