Cambridge 14 | Test 1 | Passage 1

The Importance of Children’s Play

Whitebeard’s recent research has involved developing a play-based approach to supporting children’s writing. “Many primary school children find writing difficult, but we showed in a previous study that a playful stimulus was far more effective than an instructional one.” Children wrote longer and better-structured stories when they first played with dolls representing characters in the story. In the latest study, children first created their story with Lego, with similar results. “Many teachers commented that they had always previously had children saying they didn’t know what to write about. With the Lego building, however, not a single child said this through the whole year of the project.”

stimulus (noun) [countable]

/ˈstɪm.jə.ləs/

something that causes growth or activity

represent (verb) [t]

/ˌreprɪˈzent/

to be a sign or symbol of something

latest (adjective)

/ˈleɪtɪst/

newest or most recent or modern