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Imaginative play helps develop symbolic understanding,a vital stepping stone on the path to mastering language Play helps young children to gain a greater understanding of the world around them and motivates them to interact with others. They can then map language on to this new understanding and interaction.

Play helps young children to gain a greater understanding of the world around them and motivates them to interact with others. They can then map language on to this new understanding and interaction.

By making children familiar with the structure of the nursery environment, they will be able to focus more on understanding and using language to accompany the various activities and routines.

A well-planned nursery environment enables children to become more aware of:

* routine

* boundaries (physical and personal)

* expectations

* time

* sequence of events.

Play and symbolic understanding

Before language develops, children need 'symbolic understanding'. Symbolic understanding of language is the knowledge that a word (a random sound produced out of the mouth) represents a real object, event, person or idea. A child who is developing symbolic understanding will also understand that a doll can represent a person and that a folded piece of paper can represent an aeroplane. So, by observing a child's imaginative play we can also observe their development of symbolic understanding (see table, right).

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