LEARNING THROUGH PLAY VIA VISUALIZATION TOOLS TO

ENHANCE STUDENTS COGNITIVE ABILITIES AMONG PRESCHOOL

CHILDREN
Nurul Maziah Mohd Barkhaya & Noor Dayana Abd Halim
Faculty of Education, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Malaysia
nrlmaziah29@gmail.com

Abstract

This writing convey a study about learning through play among children is a necessity for
childrens learning and their future development. Hence, the evolvement of three -
dimensional (3D) learning materials in preschool years emphasizes the play-based learning
concept. This paper discussed of several issues which are influenced in childrens literacy
that affected by classroom learning materials. Literacy is a process to acquire information,
therefore the play materials eventually enhance childrens cognitive abilities. Additionally,
almost 20 percent of a childs daily life are spent by involving in play activity to develop
their brains and meaningful engagement. Since children are more likely to engage with
something that has element of magical sense, 3D pyramid hologram (3DPH) provide user to
interact with peers and also materials itself. These behavioural pattern enable us to
understand in depth towards reaction that has happened in the child. Hopefully, this new
visualization tools will provide valuable insight for teachers to integrate it as a replacement for
traditional teaching tools which are currently in use.

Keywords: Learning through play; literacy; cognitive abilities; behavioral pattern

INTRODUCTION

The revolution of technology in this century gives a positive impact especially in educational
field, including early childhood education. Eventhough the application of technology in
preschool years does not create much enthusiasm among the researchers, the integration of
technology in childhood education is an integral part to support learning (Keengwe and
Onchwari, 2009). During the preschool years, children develop their abilities and explores the
world surrounding them by involving in various learning activities. This is why the learning
material which are based on technology plays a crucial role to replace the traditional methods of
teaching with the aim to enhance children comprehension on what they learn. Since the study is
related to preschool children, play-based learning environment should be created through any
classroom activities (NCCA, 2009; DEEWR, 2009; Wood and Attfield, 2005; Isenberg and
Quisenberry, 1988). Hence, there are some characteristics of play in order to promotes children
development, which are active, adventerous and risky, communicative, enjoyable, involved,
meaningful, sociable and interactive, and symbolic (NCCA, 2009).

In order to grab the childrens attention, the right teaching tool must incorporate the various
elements of multimedia because the visualization displays will attract their interest to explore
more about new knowledge. The tool with visualization aspect will be grab the preschool
children attention via its visual application. That visual display become attractive because of the

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combination of multimedia features itself (Bergin et al., 1996; Tan, 2008; Roberto et al., 2011;
Manap, 2005). One of the famous technology nowadays that emphasize the concept of
visualization is Augmented Reality (AR) technology and hologram is one that fall under this
technology. There are three main types of hologram which are reflection, transmission, and
computer-generated holograms (Jeong, 1999). Each type of hologram have their own
characteristic and the usage depends on what object to be displayed. Actually, this technology
has been widely used in other fields besides education as papers quotes holography is still in its
infancy stage in the field of education (Abin, 2013). In early childhood education, the reflection
hologram is lately getting attention from researchers in enhancing childrens visualization
experiences.

The reflective hologram also known as pyramid hologram, when a tool with pyramid shape will
visualize the 3D display. It will becomes an effective technology because of the three-
dimensional (3D) image it displays (Suleiman, 2014) which appears like floating in the air with
360-degree portrayal of the image. This display are perceived as something magical by children
(Billinghurst et al., 2001; Bujak et al., 2013). Besides, it allows viewer especially students to
view that object or subject learned from different angles (Walker, 2013; Aina, 2010; Van den
Bosch et al., 2005). Later, the images of this 3D pyramid hologram (3DPH) will bring them to
predict and interpret from various perspectives (Upadhye, 2013). This process finally will
improve the childrens cognitive process development and indirectly will increase student
understanding and achievement.

Since the injection of magical sense provided by 3DPH which is attractive to children, they are
more likely to engage with the tool and explore that new approach with their peers. Later, these
engagement will lead to better interactions between them and resulting in children to involve
actively in classroom activities (Mielonen and Paterson, 2009). Therefore, this type of
technology has potential to ensure the effectiveness of teaching tools in teaching and learning
process especially for preschool children because the 3D holographic displays can help to
simplify a complex picture and help children comprehend better. Besides, hologram is
recognized as an effective visualization tool for teaching (Upadhye, 2013) as it improves the
effectiveness of our teaching practices and learning environment (Walker, 2013). Hopefully this
new trend in education will provide valuable insight for teachers to integrate this technology as a
replacement for traditional teaching tools which are currently in use.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Literacy problem among preschool children

Literacy is an ability to read and write (Tsao, 2008). Literacy also refers to an individual skill
who are able to identify, understand, and interpret a simple sentence and transmit to written
information at a level sufficient to communicate or level that allows a person to understand and
express their views to others (UNESCO, 2008). Thus, United Nations recognizes literacy as one
of the human right that should be taken seriously (Chan and Lestariningsih, 2013). Usually,
literacy is associated with early childhood education. In Malaysia, this phase of education begins
at preschool level (UNICEF Malaysia Communication, 2008). National Union of Teaching
Profession (NUTP) believes that illiteracy should be addressed early in a childs education.

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Thus, the failure to equip our preschool children with the ability to read and write well before
they enter their primary school will result in substantial effect in the progress of our nation. A
country with low literacy rate will fail to impress external investors resulting in great loss in our
nations economy (Yeoh and Chu, 2012).

National standards emphasized the 4M skills, which are reading, writing, counting, and thinking
for preschool curriculum. However, based on the previous research (Imran et al., 2010), literacy
problem among preschool children has not seen any positive change. This shows that the Early
Intervention Classes to Read and Write (KIA2M) which was introduced by MOE back in 2006
until 2010 failed in achieving its objectives. The statistics shown that in late August 2006, nearly
100,000 of year one students were illiterate, while by the end of September 2009, a total of
85,000 students have not mastered 2M (Read and Write). This concern was also expressed by
Rahmalizah (2009) when she found that 138271 (35.52%) of standard ones students in
Peninsular Malaysia were illiterate. Hence, based on this statistics, Imran (2010) found that some
teachers feel like a burden to teach alphabet from the beginning because some student that
enrolled to standard one were illiterate and have weak vocabulary which lead to reading failure
(Roskos and Christie, 2011) despite attending preschool.

The good literacy skills among preschool children will indirectly improve their cognitive
abilities. According to Bartlett (2008), literacy is a process of acquiring the cognitive level.
Therefore, the materials that are used to teach preschooler must take into consideration on how
far their brain are able to think which is associated with their cognitive level. Any types of
materials in classroom setting which incorporated the 3D technology is believed will enhance
students literacy skills (Merchant, 2009; Heale, 2015). Indeed, by using interactive materials,
we will improve the literacy among children, plus improve their cognitive abilities and
eventually enhance their knowledge. This will potentiate the cognitive ability of children to its
highest cognitive ability and potential.

Cognitive abilities influenced by children literacy issue

Children cognitive abilities is also known as childrens thinking abilities because of the
involvement of thinking process. According to Piagets Cognitive Theory, there are four stages
of cognitive development in childhood life which are sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years),
preoperational stage (2 to 7 years), concrete operational stage (7 to 11 years) and formal
operational stage (11 years and over). For preschoolers, they are firmly in preoperational stage
which means that child be able to represent objects and make relationship to another through
language and symbols. Therefore, assessing the cognitive abilities among children are divided
into four parts which are conservation, irreversibility, class inclusion, and transitive inference.
These four abilities can only be attained when the cognitive has matured and thought process is
maximally utilized to comprehend the whole idea. This is higher order thinking which reflects
the maturity the childs thought process. Each level of these cognitive abilities involved in
learning process to acquire information.

As mentioned above, children learn when they actively play in classroom activities. The concept
of learn through Play has strong relationship with early literacy. This concept is proven by
many studies since 1990s (Christine and Roskos, 2006). The researchers believed that play in

35
preschool years has meaningful engagement for early literacy skills and vital in their cognitive
development (Mcquillan, Coleman, and Rowell, 2007). Based on statistics found, between 3 to
20 percent of childrens daily life are allocated to involve in play activity to develop their brains
that influence by the literacy experiences. Hence, when a children cannot pay attention to the
literacy activities such as learning alphabet letter (Zigler, Singer, Bishop-Josef, 2004), it lead to
low cognitive ability among them.

Therefore, to enhance the cognitive ability, one of the factor that should be emphasized is the
learning materials. The materials designed by teachers in order to express the literacy activity in
classroom must be attractive, interesting, and joyful to children.

Lack of attractive learning materials in preschool classroom

Learning materials or also known as learning resources are tools for delivering any content of
learning topic and ensure the high quality educational experiences to young children (Joyce et
al., 2008). Before a learning material is decided to be used in classroom, it must be evaluated by
evaluating certain criterias in order to ensure the learning material is effective and usability for
learning setting. In preschool classroom, some of the criterios which should be considered to
develop an instructional materials are attract attention, develop interest, adjust the learning
climate, and promote acceptance of idea (Wambui, 2013). In addition, the materials should be
modern with the advancement of recent technology and not outdated.

The learning materials with technology based are important in introducing a learning concept
(Sharples et al., 2010). There is where 3D image are necessary to make sure the playful learning
activity. As Piaget stated that children understand a learning concept by engaging in play
(Mielonen and Paterson, 2009). However, current learning materials for preschool are more
focusing on hands-on activity without describing the early learning concepts. Sometimes,
teachers will give brief overview about a learning topic, but just in 2D graphic and one way
method of teaching (Junqueira, 2016; Hsiao and Chang, 2015).

Nowadays, growing up in the world of cutting-edge technology, children are more likely to
engage with computer-mediated toys (Kara et al., 2013) and spend most of their time playing
with the gadgets (Bujak et al., 2013). With the various alternatives out there, these gadgets are
more interesting than learning, children find that learning in traditional ways are dull and boring
(Parhizkar et al. 2011) because of the lacking of attractive materials provided in their school. As
we know, the current method of teaching is one way process to deliver the learning content. That
is why children find this method are bored. Since the current learning materials cannot attract
children, it will cause the low level of engagement and interaction among them.

Behavioral pattern among children while engaging with learning materials

Behavioral pattern are concerned with the interaction between a person even groups of people
toward a given object. Garrison and Shale (1990) categorized the interaction in education
towards teachers, students, and content. Later, Dunlop et al. (2007) explain further about the
meaningful interaction not only involve teachers-students or students-students, but also access to
content for a high quality educational experience. The meaning of content that being addressed

36
by researchers is learning material where it gives strong relationship to build the learning
interaction in classroom activity.
Based on previous explanation on lacking of learning materials for preschool children, it leads to
low engagement between children and the material itself. Based on Piaget (1969, 1970), he
agreed that knowledge arises not from objects or child, but from the interaction between these
objects and the child. When children not engaged properly, there is no meaningful interaction
achieved. As Yilmaz (2015) said, if the rich and proper interactions between children and toys
are not realized, that materials can make children passive. Besides, the poor interactions also
affect the children social development because when engaging with the materials, children also
interact with their peers to understand the whole activity. Therefore, these both interactions were
identified as behavioral pattern that enable us to understand how the reaction happened in depth
and lead teachers to conduct environments (Hou and Wu, 2011).

Based on the entire discussion above, to overcome the issues regarding to literacy and learning
materials, a new interactive learning materials (3D pyramid hologram) will be developed. The
purpose of this material is to promote children cognitive abilities (conservation, irreversibility,
class inclusion, and transitive inference) and achieving the meaningful interaction in classroom
activities. Additionally, by chosing the high-quality of interactive materials, children can have
educational benefits in improving their social skills, literacy skills, and even school readiness
(American Academy of Pediatrics, 2011).

When children highly engage to each other and materials, the meaningful interaction will be
achieved and indirectly will increase the cognitive abilities among them. This statement was
agreed by a research done which shows that children work in pairs on an iPad got more
interaction than those who work independently (Beauchamp and Hillier, 2014; Kim et al, 2013).
However, the integration of an interactive technology to childrens education should be
experienced with adults guide because children really need the real-life experiences with the real
people. These both interactions and engagements between interactive materials, peers, and
teachers are essential to develop childrens intellectual abilities (Bruce, 2011), social, physical,
and linguistic (NAEYC and Fred Rogers Center, 2012).

CONCLUSION

This paper has discussed on how early childhood education being emphasized on some
important issues related to how far the current teaching materials can enhance childrens
thinking abilities, reduce the illiterate numbers of children while entering primary school, and
guarantee their attention from the beginning to the end of classroom session if children find it
not attractive and causes boredom. Therefore, a learning materials based on play-based learning
concept which is integrated with 3D technology highlighted in this paper as children are
attracted to something that perceived has sense of magical, indirectly can help them to visualize
a learning subject in multiple angles. Indeed, an interactive classroom material able to encourage
children to actively involved in entire learning session in order to grab their attention,
engagement, and meaningful interaction that lead to achieve the highest level of their cognitive
abilities especially when educate with preschool children which challenging endeavor.

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