Abstract
The act of play is essential to children’s development. Through play, empathy, communication, symbolic thinking as well as collaboration and problem-solving skills are learned and practiced. The current project addresses sociodramatic play as a creative projection of children’s cognitive development and aid in developing their prosocial interactions. The active cooperative interactions between participants during sociodramatic play, requires the participants to take on complementary roles that correspond with the same focus or direction of the play scenario. Sociodramatic play is the fusion of fantasy and social play, where imaginations collaborate to create play scenarios that are physically and mentally portrayed. It requires the separation of thoughts from actions, which is referred to as symbolic representation. The skills associated with symbolic representation are not only precursors to developing literacy skills, but also develop the individual’s emotional security and ability to self-regulate. Through extensive research, a resource book was created to support early childhood educators and parents of young children in comprehending the cognitive and emotional advantages of sociodramatic play as well as ways to promote this form of play within the classroom and at home. The resource book was presented to evaluators, ranging from educators to parents of preschool children. The evaluators read and completed a one-page questionnaire based on the book’s usefulness to their field. Overall, the resource book was viewed as a valuable piece of research to the field. Nine of 11 (82%) of evaluators strongly agreed with the statement that the book was well written and its objectives were met, while 18% of evaluators agreed, and no one disagreed or strongly disagreed. The evaluators enjoyed reading the personal experiences shared and appreciated how personal stories were tied to theory exploration and discussions of current research throughout the book. Eight of 9 (72%) of evaluators, working within the education field, stated they would recommend the resource book to their colleagues, and 10 of 11 (90%) of all evaluators stated they would recommend the book to parents.