Dramatic Play

Dramatic play is especially important for preschool children in learning how the world works. This type of play allows preschoolers to act out things they see in everyday life or on tv. It enhances their understanding of the roles we each play in our communities, families, and the world.

Each of our classrooms at St. Aemilian Preschool has a dramatic play center especially designed to foster this type of learning. As teachers we take opportunties to become involved to extend the learning when appropriate and take a step back to just observe children's interactions during this crucial play time.

Ann Barbour, PhD. has more to say about why dramatic play is key in your child's development.

“When children use their imaginations or pretend, we call that dramatic play and that’s the main type of play for 3-to7-year-olds. What they’re doing in dramatic play is representing in their own way their understanding of their experiences, rather than simply imitating what they see others do. They use objects and actions and storylines to symbolize the things that concern them. And in the process, they’re building thinking skills and developing social, emotional and language skills. Dramatic play is a very important context for learning.

Most preschool children love dressing up for a reason. It’s their way of learning. It’s a way for them to walk in another person’s shoes, so they understand what someone else is going through. So when your child is at home playing house, she’s not only imitating the actions of the people around her, she’s actually coming to understand at a deeper level what it’s like to be a parent. Also, when kids are engaging in dramatic play, there’s vocabulary development going on. Encouraging dramatic play encourages social and emotional development as well as helps with skills for academic learning.

Dramatic play promotes abstract thinking. When children use a prop (like a block) to stand for something else (a phone for instance), they are learning to think using symbols. The block symbolizes the phone. And that kind of thinking is the basis for just about everything children learn in school. After all, letters and words and numbers are really symbols for real objects or quantities. Dramatic play also encourages problem solving, and if children are playing with others, it builds social and emotional skills: learning about other peoples’ feelings and perspectives, negotiating, cooperating, etc. They also learn how to respond appropriately to others. In dramatic play kids can be anything they want just by pretending and that’s emotionally satisfying and builds self-esteem.

Pretend play also builds language skills. Kids often use words and phrases in play that you never knew they knew. They use language to plan their play with others and language usually supports the roles they adopt. At the same time, they can experiment with language and learn to use it appropriately. After all, doctors say different things than storekeepers do. Dramatic play also helps kids concentrate, be attentive and control their own behavior – all skills that will help them do well in school and in life. "

Ann Barbour, Ph.D.
Early Childhood Education Professor