How Dramatic Play Supports Children’s Development

A lot of educators in the United States are expected to develop and follow academic curriculums, even when teaching preschoolers. While this practice carries plenty of benefits, it also casts a shadow over the value of play in early children’s development. Even so, the topic of dramatic play becomes more and more relevant in recent years, popping up in conversations about children’s education, literacy, emotional maturity, and abstract thinking.

It’s natural to wonder about the conclusions of such conversations. Is dramatic play important for children’s development and education? Most importantly, how can dramatic play help children achieve essential milestones in their cognitive and emotional development? You can find the answers to these and many other questions related to dramatic play in the article below. 

Our goal was to create the ultimate guide on the topic of dramatic play for preschoolers that starts from the very basis of what dramatic play is and goes on to discuss the type of activities and strategies that promote children’s development in various aspects. 

Did we do a good job? Keep reading to find out. 

What Exactly Is Dramatic Play?

Dramatic play, sometimes referred to as pretend play, is a kind of play where children pretend to be someone or something else and they act out real-world experiences that they observe in their everyday life. This also includes fantasy scenarios and roles that children observed through TV, books, or other mediums. 

Before educators and psychologists have defined it as a special type of activity, dramatic play was simply a spontaneous act and hallmark of early childhood. It arises from the natural tendency of children to imitate adults and make sense of their behavior. This is why the most typical dramatic play example is a child who pretends to feed and rock a doll to sleep or a child who pretends to be the family dog chasing the ball (among others). 

During dramatic play, children can act out different people, places, times, or objects who are symbolically representing part of their imagination. Considering this variability, a lot of different activities can be subtypes of dramatic play. Symbolic play (mentally transforming objects  – turning an empty cereal bowl into the steering wheel of a spaceship) and Socio-dramatic play (pretend play in a group where children take on different roles) are two basic classifications of dramatic play based on whether the child is playing on its own or interacts with other children. We’ll take a closer look at these and other classifications in our next paragraphs. 

The Building Blocks of Dramatic Play

Authors like Greta Fein and Stephanie Carlson have done a fantastic job in establishing a concrete timeline of dramatic play and the stages through which children go through as they gain new skills. This timeline gives teachers and parents a good example of what they can expect and how to recognize the specific milestones related to the child’s age. 

Dramatic Play Timeline

Dramatic play usually appears at 12 months of age in its most rudimentary form. A good example of this would be if the child pretends to eat, sleep, or does some other pretend activity, that’s too simple to be considered a play. During this initial period, the child learns to pretend and experiments to see what it feels like. 

After the initial, self-directed pretend activities, the child’s play will become more elaborate with the focus shifted toward other people, objects, or interpersonal relationships. In this process, which is typically seen in children of around two to three years old, kids start using objects symbolically and incorporate them in their play. This means that they’ll manipulate their environment by giving animate characteristics to inanimate objects. For example, the banana becomes a telephone. As they develop cognitively, they’ll take the play a step further by giving objects human identities. An example of this would be treating their stuffed bear like a real human and talking to it, even expecting us to know or understand what the bear is saying. 

At just two years of age, kids can follow and continue adult pretend play actions. If the teacher or parent says that a cardboard box is a car, the child will sit inside and pretend to drive it around. 

Dramatic play slowly and gradually becomes more complex in children near preschool age. This becomes evident when their play turns from object-dependent to more socially oriented and involved role-playing (creating fictional characters, stories, and events).

In preschool, children are most involved in dramatic play activities, which can sometimes last for hours. From there on, the interest in dramatic play slowly decreases as fantasy becomes more private and kids become interested in social games (middle school). 

The Five Stages of Dramatic Play

As we’ve seen, dramatic play changes through the years – a process that reflects the dynamic cognitive and emotional development of the child. Keeping these changes in mind, Leong and Bodrova published an article in Young Children in 2012, where they define dramatic play through five distinct stages. 

Stage one is playing without planning. Children don’t plan their play, don’t have defined roles, and most of the time they play in silence. They might play with objects, but there’s no symbolism. In this stage, children can imitate the teacher’s or the parent’s actions but they can’t follow complex instructions. 

Stage two is role-playing. While kids still don’t plan during their play in this stage, they take a more active and defined role. There are no strict or explicit rules, but teachers and parents can observe a more meaningful interaction with objects. Plus, the child has no problem describing their actions. Symbolism appears and there might be scenarios that last a few minutes. 

Stage three is characterized by rules and simple planning. Kids in this stage plan their roles and their actions before they start to play. Typically, each participant or object gets a name and a well-defined role. Dramatic play at this point is object-dependent and lasts around 10 to 15 minutes. Another characteristic is that the rules can be easily violated without resisting or thinking too much about it. 

Stage four is defined by mature roles and lasting scenarios. What this means is that here, kids have no problem coordinating with other kids to organize a more complex dramatic play with multiple scenarios that may last up to an hour or more. The first main characteristic is that these scenarios are remembered and can be continued in the following days with a little help from the teacher or parents. The second characteristic is that kids use role speech, meaning they’re fully involved in the play and use appropriate first-person perspective when they play. 

Finally, the last stage is called dramatization. Here, the child enjoys directing. What this means is kids show an interest in making the play more elaborate, they want to plan everything, and spend more time organizing than acting out. Dramatic play can last for several days, which means interrupting and restarting the play doesn’t affect the flow. Usually, more kids are involved in the play and instead of relying on props, they pretend (create imaginary scenarios, characters, environments). 

Disclaimer: Although the last two paragraphs deal with specific time-frames in children’s development, these frameworks should not be taken as the standard for what’s normal or desired. Every child is different and they can reach some of the stages earlier then gradually  progress or later then skip a stage. Use the frameworks only as a guide that will help you identify specific behaviors based on which you can plan future activities. 

The Importance of Dramatic Play in Children’s Development

Up until now, we’ve dissected and explored dramatic play in great detail without really touching upon the benefits that kids take out of it.

We believe it was important for you to know the exact nature of dramatic play, so you can better understand how the following benefits arise from such activity. 

Cognitive Benefits 

The first cluster of benefits relates to children’s cognitive development. In the psychological literature, we can find evidence that dramatic play supports creativity, literature and language, and higher cognitive functions, also known as executive functions. 

Creativity

Among some of the researchers who have linked dramatic play with curiosity is Olivia Saracho. She published an article in 2002 in the journal “Early Child Development and Care” in which she gives support to the idea that creativity can be learned and taught through the use of imagery and fantasy, as well as some other mechanisms. 

Today, we know that dramatic play enhances divergent thinking (a component of creativity) and creative problem-solving skills in particular. 

Language and Literacy

The link between dramatic play and language is by far the most studied one. Different studies have shown how these two operations function by using symbolic thought. It might not seem so evident at first thought, but just as a banana can represent a phone, letters and words represent our physical and abstract reality. For these reasons, dramatic play is a mental practice for creating, using, and manipulating different symbols. 

This relationship, which was most boldly advocated by the famous developmental psychologist Vygotsky, has now been proven to also have an effect on children’s mathematical skills. Through dramatic play, children are immersed in mathematical- and graphical-rich environments that promote their understanding of mathematical symbols and operations, without them being consciously aware of them. 

Furthermore, in dramatic play, children practice their language skills and reading-comprehension by using complex tenses, interrogative clauses, descriptive adjectives, conditional verbs, and other aspects. 

Executive Functions

Executive functions in the cognitive sciences are considered a set of higher-end processes that involve working memory, self-awareness, self-regulation, planning, decision-making, and other mechanisms responsible for generating socially-appropriate behavior and good reasoning. For instance, the tests screening for school readiness are tests on executive functions processes. 

It is believed that self-control and self-regulation (a key component of executive functions) is  developed greatly in dramatic play. Children must learn to inhibit their own desires and immediate instincts in order to follow the rules of the play and stay in their defined role. 

Additionally, through dramatic play, kids learn to plan elaborate scenarios and look at an object flexibly (bound its physical properties) in order to attribute different functions. 

Social and Emotional Benefits

Another cluster of benefits related to children’s social and emotional development. It surely comes as no surprise that through dramatic play, children learn valuable communication skills, the limits of the self versus others, building a self-identity, as well as emotional control and empathy. 

Understanding Interpersonal Interactions

Dramatic play is highly interactive which requires children to cooperate and synchronize their own actions with others. This leads to a better understanding of how others interact, how their desires affect the play, and how they can overcome these differences when working toward one goal. 

Learning About the Self vs. Others

Building a sense of self and self-identity is yet another thing that’s correlated with dramatic play. By taking different roles, children learn what it feels like to be in someone else’s shoes. They experience different situations and learn that some things feel better than others. This is the beginning of their personal traits, which make up the character. 

Emotional Control 

Finally, dramatic play supports emotional intelligence. Dramatic play and fantasy give children the means to practice control over their environment, thoughts, and feelings. More importantly, when playing with other children in socio-dramatic play, kids must follow the rules and find themselves “at the mercy” of others who determine how they should behave. This requires a great deal of emotional control and inhibition of immediate desires to be a member of the group. 

Dramatic Play Strategies and Activities

Finally, in this last section of our article, we’ll talk about four different strategies and activities that teachers and homeschooling parents can use to introduce and use dramatic play in an educational setting. 

You can choose which of these strategies is the best starting point for you, depending on the age of the children or students, as well as whether you’ve used the method of dramatic play before. 

Imitation

Imitation is the most basic form of pretend play and is most beneficial to two- to three-year-old kids. It basically consists of careful observation of people and animals in the child’s environment and then trying to mimic their behavior by remembering key features that characterize their entity. 

The easiest way is to start with animals or professions. After the child reads a book about animals or watches a movie, say “I’m a dog and I go woof woof (also making facial expressions and characteristics dog movements), you’re a cat and you go (prompting the child to imitate the cat)?” You can continue the game further by saying that the dog chases the cat and start chasing your child around the room. In the beginning, imitating one or two actions is enough, but as you progress try to extend the roles and create a story. 

This activity helps very young children to learn how to pretend and how to use pretending in a fun and playful way!

Symbolic Play Through Object Manipulation

Children between two to three years old will also like to play on their own and with other kids at their age. Make sure to leave a lot of simple objects around, which can be used by the child. Observe them and see how kids interact with the objects. If you see the child struggling, help them by showing how they can use the small cardboard as a garage for their race car or how to drive it around the obstacles in the room (examples). At this age, kids are much better at modeling your behavior rather than following instructions. 

After a while, introduce different dramatic play activities (play doctor and patient, playing firemen, playing bakers, etc) and give kids different roles with some very basic rules.

Pretend Play

Children at three years old and above will benefit most from playing make-believe where they take a familiar role from their everyday life. A good example would be incorporating pretend play after a real-life experience. Take your kid to the supermarket and when you come home or the next day, ask them if they want to play “the supermarket!” Assign roles, and make sure to use role speech which will help the child better understand the purpose and nature of the relationship between the roles. Don’t forget to assign names to all the participants and some objects (stuffed bears of dolls). Discuss the character and behavior of the objects with the child. Ask them questions such as “What does Sally (the doll) want to eat?” or “What is her favorite color?”

Socio-Dramatic Play

Finally, preschoolers who have mastered the previously discussed activities will benefit from creating more elaborate plans about their dramatic play. For example, you and your child can pretend to be treasure hunters in the backyard. Together you can set up a tent, follow a map around with clues, pretend to stack food, gather wood for a fire, and check if you have all the safety equipment. An important aspect of these socio-dramatic plays is that there should be well-defined roles and a plan. They should last over a couple of days, so kids can learn to follow scenarios even if they were interrupted.  

Before You Leave

Hopefully, by now you know that dramatic play is an essential ingredient in early childhood development. Although there are many things we can still discuss on the topic of dramatic play, we believe that with this practical guide, teachers and homeschooling parents will be able to better understand the basics and the importance of dramatic play in the cognitive and socio-emotional development of preschool kids. 

With this knowledge in mind, educators can make a wiser decision when designing the educational program. As we’ve seen, learning takes many forms, and spending most of the time playing with others might be more beneficial than attending formal lectures. Of course, nothing is black and white, which means a well-thought-out and balanced approach is probably the best way to go. 

Before we say goodbye, don’t forget that you can always find flexible and easy-to-use worksheets, as well as other teacher resources, on our website. With just one click, you can download and utilize these resources in a classroom or a homeschool setting. 

Also, keep in mind that we regularly share interesting and informative content on our blog – just like this article right here!