Education 2012, 2(7): 255-263 DOI: 10.5923/j.edu.20120207.06 Play and Literacy: Six-year-old Children in Elementary Education Tizuko M. Kishimoto 1,* , Monica A. Pinazza 1 , RosanaF. C. Morgado 2 , Kamila T. Rumi 2 1 School of Education at the University of Sao Paulo/Brazil 2 Application School of School of Education at the University of Sao Paulo/Brazil Abstract The investigation of play and literacy was based on monitoring data of five classes of six-year-old children from 2006 to 2010, and an analysis of the teaching plan: performance records of children, interviews with parents; oral testimony of children, teacher records and reports from the toy library. The data indicates the relevance of the curriculum with activity, mediation and use of imaginary play and games with the support of signs and artifacts. The research found that mediation is most appropriate when there are two teachers for implementing activities related to the pedagogy of games for literacy. Keywords Play, Literacy, Elementary Education 1. Introduction The study addresses the use of play and games in literacy for children of six years in the elementary school i and the analysis of the concepts of activity, play and mediation, under the historical-cultural perspective. The changes in the education system that incorporated six-year-old children - who previously attended pre-school at that age - into elementary school justifies the need to prepare proposals for adapting the education of these children through play and the acquisition of new knowledge that is required for entering elementary school level . The experiment was conducted by means of the collaborative work of researchers and teachers of the School of Education at the University of São Paulo (FEUSP) and the Application Scholl (EA) . The intention to expand the elementary school period from eight to nine years had already been announced in the National Education Law of Guidelines and Bases no. 9394/96. In 2001, the National Education Plan indicated the national education goal of bringing forward the compulsory, free education to the age of six. This public policy began to be planned in 2004, and was included in the texts published in subsequent years, and 2010 was established as the limit for its deployment throughout the country. The reasoning for the expansion of primary education to nine years is based on the urgency of building an inclusive, civic, supportive and quality school for all, and on greater time spent in school[1,2,3]. * Corresponding author: tmkishim@usp.br (Tizuko Kishimoto) Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/edu Copyright © 2012 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved The Ministry of Education intended to implement policy changes in school structure, in the reorganization of school time and space, and in the manners to teach, learn, evaluate, organize and develop the curriculum, and to work with knowledge, respecting the uniqueness of human development[1,2,3]. The nine-year Elementary School goals were defined as: to improve the fairness and quality conditions of basic education; to structure a new elementary school for children to proceed in their studies, achieving a higher educational level and to have more time for literacy[3]. The new elementary school requires its own educational project at curricular level, as mentioned in document no. 24/ 2004[4] : [...] Education and school systems shall match the new elementary school situation of supply and duration to a teaching proposal that is appropriate to the age of six years, especially in terms of organization of school time and space, also considering adequate furniture, equipment and human resources. The Office of Basic Education published the Nine-Year Basic Education: Guidelines for the inclusion of children aged six documents in 2006, addressing issues that call the attention to the coming of topics that have historically been distant from the schooling curriculum, such as play/leisure and literacy. Playing is seen as "a way of being in the world[...] the one and only legitimate expression of childhood[...] one of the principles for educational practice" that must be present "in time and space at the school and classrooms[...] in the years/grades of nine-year elementary education "[5] p.10. It also shows the exclusivity of literacy in the first years of elementary education, at the expense of other areas of knowledge as being "an educational incoherence"[5] p.10.