The University of Iowa College of Education

Table of Contents

Karen Wohlwend

Just Playing Influences Literacy

One kindergartener fashioned an iPod out of a piece of paper, pipe cleaners, pompoms and a piece of string. Another made a paper cell phone. Two boys were engaged in a fast-paced video game face-off, without a video game console.

“They played the entire game on a piece of paper—each boy sketched out the moves he would make,” said Karen Wohlwend (PhD ’07). “It happened so fast, but they seemed to understand it almost automatically with little need to stop and explain to each other what they were doing.”

Wohlwend studies play in kindergarten classrooms to understand how children use play to learn to read and write as well as how new technologies are impacting children’s play and literacy. “I’m thinking about what we can learn from children as they’re exploring these new technologies and new ways with literacy,” she said. Wohlwend said she hopes her research will help teachers and administrators revalue play at school.

“It’s a global trend: play is disappearing in schools, even in kindergarten classrooms,” Wohlwend said. “Teachers have difficulty justifying play in their classrooms. However, play allows children to accomplish the serious work of managing new literacies, tools, and roles that are constantly changing. I’m trying to think about play in fresh ways.”
For example, Wohlwend recently published an article on ways children use Disney Princess dolls to tell stories and how they often stretch stereotypical story lines and gender roles in their play.

“Rather than simply replaying familiar storylines from favorite videos, children are actually creating more powerful and creative stories with more interesting roles for their peers to play,” Wohlwend said. Before earning her doctorate in Language, Literacy, and Culture, Wohlwend was a kindergarten and first-grade teacher. She observed firsthand the connections between play and literacy and how children use play to interpret the world.

Wohlwend earned the Outstanding Dissertation Award from the International Reading Association, a leading organization in the field of literacy, as well as the Emerging Scholar Award from the American Education Research Association. Wohlwend said the awards are evidence of the incredible support and inspiration she received in her UI College of Education study. Professor Bonnie Sunstein taught her ethnographic research methods she uses during her classroom visits. Professor Kathryn Whitmore helped her understand the many cultural and linguistic resources children draw upon to understand literacy.

Whitmore, Wohlwend’s dissertation advisor, describes her as “one of the finest, brightest students we’ve had in our program. It was clear from the beginning that she would make unique contributions to the field, that what she would discover and investigate during her career would be something new,” Whitmore said.

Wohlwend is now an assistant professor of Literacy, Culture, and Language Education at Indiana University where she continues her study of literacy play in early-childhood classrooms. “We’ve thought of play as a nice-to-have activity but not really as important work,” Wohlwend said. “I’m looking at children’s play differently, as a literacy with new texts, as a critical way for children to read and understand the world.” Whitmore said she sees Wohlwend’s play and literacy research having a large impact in classrooms. “She is widening the early literacy view of what reading texts are and extending them to include what’s commonly called 21st century skills,” Whitmore said. “She’s also reinvigorating the academic world’s thinking about play and how important play is to learners of all ages. We need learners who can really play.”