Puppetry in Education: Enhancing Literacy Through Creative Play

1. Puppetry in EducationHow puppetry improvesliteracy • Children relate to puppets from their earliest years because they are used to making inanimate characters come to life. • Children are puppeteers themselves from the first time they pick up a shoe, a squeezed-out half orange or a hairbrush and make it move and talk. Toys and dolls take an active role in children's play. • They laugh and talk and argue. They try on personalities and take them off again. The child makes her doll move - she is the puppeteer. She scolds her doll in the stern but loving voice of a mother - she is an actor. She makes her doll stamp its foot and then laughs at the effect - she is the audience. After this early experience a child recognises puppets as legitimate and natural. The puppet can be whatever the puppeteer and the child make it. It can be the child's friend without demanding something in return. It can be a clown. It can be naughty and get into trouble without hurting anyone. It can say what the child thinks, feel what the child feels and share a child's sadness. It can show a child who knows poverty, hunger, war and loss that there can also be joy and love and a happy ending. A puppet can tell a child who rarely hears it that he is loved. A puppet can show a child that her father or mother can also be sad, and it can demonstrate the value of love, the futility of quarrel and the benefit of cooperation and support www.littlerays.wordpress.com

2. Benefits of Puppetry Puppets are an extension of self, allowing for: • Freedom to explore other characters, how they look, behave, respond, and feel • Confidence in speaking, as attention is on the puppet • This works at this stage of learning because this is how children engage with their toys in playing • Bringing to life and animating a situation which can then be broken down and discussed • Engaging observation and participation in situations with distance and having time to reflect • Giving purpose to their investigation of communication through presentation and shared assessment. www.littlerays.wordpress.com

3. How Does Puppetry work to enhance literacy in Children Inspiration: • Seeing a puppet show • Published literature • Published poetry • Stories or poems written by the children • Scripts written be the children • Non fiction (linked to topic) www.littlerays.wordpress.com

4. A purpose for puppets • What kind of performance will take place • What will the content of the performance be • What text if any, needs to be created to support the performance • Who will create the text www.littlerays.wordpress.com

5. Designing and making the Puppets • What characters will we need • What style of puppetry will suit the characters best • What style of puppetry will suit the performance and text (shadow, rod, glove etc.) • Practical issues (materials available, ability of the children) www.littlerays.wordpress.com

6. Learning to use the puppets • Play with the puppets to see how they move and get used to the feel of them • Represent different emotions with the puppets without using sound (game) • Playing with the effects you can create with the puppets (shadow puppetry) www.littlerays.wordpress.com

7. Creating a Performance • The puppets are like illustrations that accompany your story • Does not have to be a traditional play-script style performance • The story/ poem could be narrated or pre-recorded and with the puppets bringing the story to life • The story can be told without text using music and sound to evoke the mood www.littlerays.wordpress.com

8. Completing the Project • Doing exercises that lead toward the children being comfortable • Having a showing of the work the produce for an audience, fellow classmates or parents • Ensuring that they have an opportunity to assess each other and comment on what they like and how they feel through discussion www.littlerays.wordpress.com