SERIOUS PLAY - THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUNG CHILDRENS ORAL INVENTEDSTORIES AND THEIR LEARNING

Drawing on a long-term study of 200 oral invented narratives from five pre-school children this paper summarises the linguistic, discursive and cognitive competencies revealed in the narrations. It argues that the principles of the children's learning are metaphorical as well as combinatorial. In educational contexts and curricula the transformativ e processes involved in verbal symbolic play are insufficiently acknow ledged and catered for.