Watching children’s dramatic play as it develops through the early childhood years lets us see that it becomes more complicated, extensive and prolonged over time. Dramatic play provides opportunities to combine spoken language with imagination, to imitate, and to pretend to be someone or something else. It stimulates all areas of a child's growth and can in turn affect the child's success in school.
Dramatic play has also been shown to enable children to be more flexible in new situations. Pretending allows children to transform real life, changing things from how they really are to how the child perceives them to be.Research is abundant when it comes to play and its positive effect on children's development. Play is enjoyable for all but often underestimated for its unique way of positively influencing physical, cognitive, and psycho social development. Children especially can become consumed in their own imaginary world of play. This world of play offers children vast opportunities to learn about themselves, others, and the environment in which they live.
Benefits of play in the classroom include:
- Physical: increase in strength, overall fitness, motor skill development, and health
- Cognitive: increase in skills such as problem solving, creative thinking, planning, organizing, language, and overall academic success
- Social and Emotional: enhanced development of cooperation, sharing, turn taking, less egocentrism, increase in prosocial values and self esteem, practice of appropriate social roles
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