Dramatic Play: Articles

Dramatic Play: Resources

Play, Development and Early Education Johnson, James, Christie, James, and Wardle, Francis. (2005): Discover the universal language of childhood! Challenges the reader to discover what play is and how to incorporate it into a curriculum for children from toddlerhood through the primary grades. The nature of play as a mode for learning is examined through three core ideas: the quality of play in early childhood, play as a means of self-expression, and play as a channel of communication to achieving social sense. In addition, the text addresses the role of parents in supporting and elaborating play, the direct connections between research and play practice, and the value of play in relation to the total development (cognitive, affective, emotional, social, and physical) of all children.

The Arts, Young Children, and Learning Wright, Susan. (2003): Demonstrates how children learn through the arts and how adults play an important role in assisting this learning. This is not a “cookbook” of activities for dramatic play. The author leads the reader to understand the theory and philosophy of the importance of “the arts” in young children’s lives. Chapter 10 deals exclusively with “dramatic play” making those 18 pages well worth reading.

A Child's Work: The Importance of Fantasy Play Paley, Vivian Gussin (2004): A Child's Work goes inside classrooms around the globe to explore the stunningly original language of children in their role-playing and storytelling. Drawing from their own words, Paley examines how this natural mode of learning allows children to construct meaning in their worlds, meaning that carries through into their adult lives. Proof that play is the work of children, this compelling and enchanting book will inspire and instruct teachers and parents as well as point to a fundamental misdirection in today's educational programs and strategies.

In Mrs. Tully’s Room: A Childcare Portrait Paley, Vivian Gussin (2001): Paley makes a quiet but powerful case for the skill and insight that childcare providers--so often underpaid and undervalued--can bring to their work. It also emphasizes how warm, quasi-familial, even mentoring relationships can develop between childcare providers and their preschool families.In Mrs. Tully's Room offers hope to parents and practical guidelines for daycare providers on how to use their imaginations, and those of their charges, to enrich the children's minds and hearts. Wonderful, tender, inspiring. Paley brings the intense and seemingly illogical lives of two-year-olds into focus. Every one who works with very young children should read this book...great insights into the importance of being a sensitive and listening teacher/caregiver.

The Kindness of Children Paley, Vivian Gussin (2000): A truly beautiful book about the kindness of children, witnessed by Paley in classrooms from a remote rural community on Lake Superior to London. She captures the urgency and precision in the stories they tell in her program... “Children are eager,” Paley writes, “to take part in another's stories so that they may fill in the empty spaces.” A fine writer who has learned in her life of observation how to let the subject drive the story.

Bad Guys Don’t Have Birthdays: Fantasy Play at Four Paley, Vivian Gussin (1988): Engaging reading on the capabilities of four-year-olds in Paley’s classroom to work out in fantasy play their own deepest concerns about life.

Molly is Three. Growing Up in School Paley, Vivian Gussin (1986): Find out how the three-year-old initiates fantasy play and deals with a world of reality and make-believe as if it were a seamless garment.
“With a delightful, almost magical touch, Paley shares her observations and insights about three-year-olds. The use of a tape recorder in the classroom gives her a second chance to hear students' thoughts from the doll corner to the playground, and to reflect on the ways in which young children make sense of the experience of school. . . . Paley lets the children speak for themselves, and through their words we reenter the world of the child in all its fantasy and inventiveness."--Harvard Educational Review

The Role of Pretend Play in Children's Cognitive Development: An in-depth article, from a professor of educational psychology at Miami University, explaining the benefits of dramatic play for children.

The American Association for the Child's Right to Play: IPA/USA is the national affiliate of IPA. Recognized by UNESCO, ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council), and UNICEF, this non-governmental organization has established a Declaration of the Child's Right to Play stating that the child has a right to leisure, play, and participation in cultural and artistic activities.

Playing for Keeps: A great website for getting connected with people and organizations that want to make "play" a mainstay of early childhood education. Playing for Keeps is a national not-for-profit organization that exists to help bridge the gap between what researchers have learned about play-and what parents and professionals who impact kids' lives on a day-to-day, hour-by-hour basis need to know to help nurture our precious children to their full potential.

Alliance for Childhood: A nonprofit partnership of educators, health professionals, and other advocates for children, who joined together and boldly take up concerns and issues affecting the lives of children throughout the world. They will work together as partners, they decided, in forging a broad new international coalition to challenge the rush to end childhood. Good source of information and ways to turn this into action.

The Association for the Study of Play (TASP): TASP is a multidisciplinary organization whose purpose is to promote the study of play, to support and cooperate with other organizations having similar purposes, and to organize meetings and publications that facilitate the sharing and dissemination of information related to the study of play. TASP publishes a regular, extensive newsletter that includes book reviews, research updates in different disciplines, and other information. TASP also publishes Play and Culture Studies on a regular basis.