Strategies to support play with toys and objects Play reflects a child's understanding of both the physical world and their social world. Two of the most important types of play to encourage in young children are replica play and coordinated symbolic play. This type of play helps children develop a sense of sequence and narrative important for language development and future literacy. House play, shopping, riding the bus to school, setting up for snack at school, are all themes that can be easily replicated with simple, realistic props, such as dishes, pan, plastic food, used food boxes. Thus, the toys available to support play themes should be organized and visibly displayed so that they can be easily incorporated into the play.
Adults can support play by providing comments that assists in maintaining focus on the play.
For example, pretending a pencil is a toothbrush or cupping hands and pretending to drink water. While symbolic play skills cannot be direct taught, the child who is almost ready to engage in this type play is likely to benefit from opportunities to play with this manner of thinking. For example, taking a drink from an imaginary cup just after pouring a juice into a real cup, or using on object to represent another by pretending a one-inch cube is ajar of mustard and putting in on a plastic hamburger. Strategies to support social play skills Many children benefit from adults to increase their social play skills. Two types of social play are parallel play and associative play.