Child Care Quarterly states that dramatic play promotes the language development of children in several ways. Play teaches kids to communicate ideas, tell stories and reciprocate by listening, and to respond to ideas and activities. Through dramatic play, children learn to use language to solve problems, to describe and direct current activities and to practice sequence and chronology. Furthermore, it helps increase their vocabulary range.
Certain props can give dramatic play even more of an influence on language development, emphasizes Sandra Duncan, associate publisher of Early Childhood Today. For instance, paper, markers and address books encourage kids to incorporate writing into their play. Likewise, books, magazines and catalogs promote reading during dramatic play.
Duncan also maintains that dramatic play involving a phone prop has particular importance in language development. Kids use this type of dramatic play to learn to read and give linguistic cues instead of using visual body language cues. Because the phone indicates they are not looking at their peers while talking to them, children are forced to use specific words and intonations to get their points across. They must also think of the other children and their roles in order to communicate with them, and learn how to conceptualize phone conversations by providing the proper openings, closings, pauses and responses.
Phones as props for dramatic play not only help children improve the specific skills related to phone conversations, they also contribute to key areas in general language development. In a study done in 1983, M. Glover-Miller compared a group of kids who used a telephone prop in dramatic play to a group that conducted play scenes without one. The results showed that children who were provided the telephone props had an overall increase in oral language participation, spoke longer sentences, and used language in a more mature way.
A child's dramatic play often indicates her level of verbal language development, according to TeachingStrategies.com. For example, children at lower levels of language development will center their speech in dramatic play around the use of toys. On the other hand, children with more advanced verbal language skills will center their speech around the theme of their play and keep up a constant dialogue about the roles play participants are assuming. They will even choose the type of language that fits each role.