Gamified learning has become increasingly prevalent in early childhood education due to its potential to enhance children’s engagement and participation in classroom activities. Despite growing interest in game-based and play-oriented pedagogies, existing research has tended to emphasize activity design or learning outcomes, while paying comparatively limited attention to how teachers guide children’s participation within gamified learning contexts. This study adopts a practice-oriented qualitative approach to examine how teacher guidance operates in everyday early childhood classrooms and how different forms of guidance shape children’s learning processes across diverse gamified activities. Data were collected through classroom observations, documentation of gamified learning activities, and teacher reflective records in a regular early childhood education setting. Participants included 24 children aged 4–6 years and three early childhood teachers. Gamified learning activities were embedded in daily classroom instruction and categorized into role-play games, rule-based games, and creative construction games. Thematic analysis was conducted to identify recurring patterns in teacher guidance strategies and children’s participation behaviors. The findings indicate that teacher guidance plays a central mediating role in gamified learning. Distinct patterns of engagement were observed across activity types: dialogic guidance supported sustained verbal interaction and social negotiation in role-play games; explicit guidance facilitated self-regulation, attention, and goal-oriented behavior in rule-based games; and open-ended guidance encouraged exploration, originality, and reflective thinking in creative construction games. Across all activity contexts, teachers flexibly adjusted their guidance in response to children’s engagement and developmental needs, thereby shaping the quality and depth of learning experiences. The study concludes that the educational value of gamified learning in early childhood education is closely linked to intentional, context-sensitive teacher guidance, highlighting the importance of viewing gamification not merely as a set of activities, but as a pedagogical approach grounded in professional judgment and responsive interaction.
Yili Shen (Sat,) studied this question.