What is the ERPEC?

Charlotte Wright (Ed.M., M.S.) created the ERPEC to address the elusive nature of the word “play” in the early childhood field. During her experience as an early childhood educator, she found that the absence of play in classrooms and homes related to difficulties in conceptualizing play as a critical facilitator for learning and development. Her hope is that by more clearly and collectively articulating what play is, we can increase its corresponding value in teachers' and caregivers' minds, which will ultimately help us protect a child's right to play.

The ERPEC operationalizes play into meaningful, research-backed categories and domains according to important distinctions in the ways that play can manifest. In doing this, the ERPEC details a taxonomy for play in early childhood: a common language that can be used by educators, parents, researchers, and policymakers to speak and write about the play that they observe without simply calling it “play” or having to describe it in length.

After an experience fits into the overarching definition of play, a play observer can use the three tiers of the ERPEC - Play Categories, Play Domains, and Social Interaction Distinctions of Play - to more specifically name and define the play experience that they observe.

When the shared language presented on the ERPEC is used across the early childhood field, there will be more comparable research and consequently, more evidence to connect learning and development outcomes to specific play experiences.

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Although education thought leaders, scholars, psychologists and philosophers all agree that play is important for young children, there are tremendous discrepancies in how the concept is defined. The difficult task of defining play is cited as a reason for the lack of extensive research on the topic and consequently, also the evidence needed to defend its role in children’s lives (Bowman, Donovan & Burns, 2001).

As education systems around the world are increasingly bolstering their early childhood programs, while also simultaneously focusing on building systems of accountability which favor teacher-directed learning, we are at critical juncture in defending a child’s right to play. However, to defend play, we need to be clear about what “play” means and we need support all stakeholders to understand the myriad ways that play can materialize. The ERPEC was designed using existing play and early childhood research to address this need for a clear and uniform way to speak about play in early childhood.