Millie Almy; Wrote of Importance of Play in Child Development

Millie Almy, a pioneering researcher in early childhood development and a professor emeritus at UC Berkeley, died Aug. 15 at her home in Berkeley. She was 86.

Almy was an advocate of child development as a science on which to base the education of preschool children. Her research helped to establish the importance of play in a child’s healthy development.

She wrote a dozen books, including “Teaching Young Children in Nursery School, Kindergarten and the Primary Grades” (1952), “The Early Childhood Educator at Work” (1975) and “Ways of Studying Children: An Observation Manual for Early Childhood Teachers” (1978).

Almy was a native of Clymer, N.Y., who began her career in 1936 as a nursery school teacher at Yale University. She taught at the University of Cincinnati and Columbia’s Teachers College through 1971, when she joined UC Berkeley.