How Dramatic Play Impacts Early Literacy Development
When most people think of a child at play, they will recall ball passing, squealing, sprinting, and imaginary scenarios being built upon with peers. This final category of fun is dramatic play. Dramatic play is a child’s rendition of an experience that allows that child to work through the facets of reality. These activities engage children in active learning and encourage autonomy and ownership. Dramatic play provides a safe zone for children to explore new situations, engage in publicly acceptable social interaction, utilize an emotional outlet where problem-solving skills and conflict resolution are employed, and instill the foundational structure for early literacy.
Stepping into a role helps children conform to socially acceptable behavior. Dramatic play provides simple ground rules and helps the children explore all possible variations of a situation within the boundaries of the restrictions of the role. These activities are unstructured within structure and give children choices within guidelines. Sporadic impulses are minimized, and social interactions are gained. Roles help children distinguish responsibilities and encourage leadership. Learning experiences should be as close to real-world experiences as possible. Through that authenticity, information that provides prior knowledge for future encounters of similar situations is gained.
Dramatic play provides emotional support for children struggling to deal with certain situations. Children explore emotions and reactions through play. By reenacting a situation they are scared of or suffering from, the child can reinterpret the situation through a different lens in a comfortable and secure environment. The child’s emotional health benefits from expressing the actual circumstances as well as altering the situation to suit what they want or wish to happen. Dramatic play provides both caregiver and child an insight into the emotional well-being of the individual engaged in play. Dramatic play allows children to externally navigate through different emotions and social concepts.
Perhaps the most influential benefit of Dramatic play is the effect it has on early literacy development. Dramatic play inspires creative thinking and story creation. This avenue of play allows a child to manipulate details and unfold a story in a unique and personalized way. This is foundational to the institutions of developing a story of substance with a beginning, middle, and end with accurate transitions and vivid details. Dramatic play helps children build upon ideas and connect to and with each other. Additionally, with new scenarios comes new verbiage. Vocabulary development is a key component of literacy development. When recreating a rendition of a story, children gain a deeper understanding of story structure and context. Furthermore, children experience the different characters' perspectives vicariously through play. This inspires new ways of looking at things. These skills are better developed and best conveyed through examples. Thus, by understanding perspective, the children will be better equipped to identify the causes and effects of scenarios as well as the motivations of the characters. Moreover, Dramatic play settings allow for cultural exploration. All these strategies cumulate to give evidence for theme recognition. These skills are clearly linked to Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts Development and have proven to be critical to the success of a child’s early literacy.
The more children are immersed in the play, the greater their understanding and awareness of common functions become. All these developmental influences contribute to a child’s level of reading comprehension. Theater is a modern art form and art enhances the ability to visualize. Mental imagery is at the forefront of storytelling and by extension, literature. Dramatic play is an instrumental tool that provides a setting to gauge initiative, creativity, social ability, conflict resolution, and competencies through a pedagogical and social lens.
