The Science of Play: Why Narrative Imagination Matters
It’s a scene you know well—your child scatters their toys across the living room floor, stacks a precarious tower of blocks, plunks a toy astronaut on top, and declares it the Moon Castle. To you, it might look like clutter on your floor, but to them, it’s a fully unfolding story full of endless possibility.
Research shows us that this simple moment of childhood make-believe is cognitive gold. Narrative imagination—the ability to spin stories out of thin air—is one of the most powerful tools children have for building language, critical thinking, and empathy skills.
Storytelling Lights Up the Whole Brain
Your child’s stories may sometimes seem silly, nonsensical, or just plain weird, but the work your child is engaging in when creating them is serious business. When kids weave together a narrative beginning, middle, and end, their brains are firing on all cylinders. Neuroscientists have found that storytelling engages far more than the language areas of the brain—it actually lights up emotional, visual, motor, and memory centers all at the same time. So while their stories may look simple on the surface, inside a child’s mind they’re functioning as high-powered training for linguistics, imagination, logic, empathy, and creativity.
Pretend-Play Is the First Literacy Lesson
Literacy is a fundamental life skill that significantly shapes social, educational, professional, and personal experiences throughout life. And nurturing a child’s literacy begins well before they ever pick up a book or learn to read their first words. In early childhood, children begin practicing the building blocks of literacy through pretend-play. Every time they invent a character, name a place, or decide “what happens next,” they’re already experimenting with vocabulary, logical sequencing, and narrative structure. Research even shows early storytelling predicts later reading and writing success. In other words: the roots of foundational language and comprehension proficiencies are found in early childhood exposure to stories.
Play Builds Kinder, More Perceptive Kids
The beauty of narrative play is that it allows kids to “try on” diverse and unbound roles: the brave explorer, the clever detective, the mysterious scientist, the world-class chef. Switching perspectives while organizing a narrative of diverse characters naturally helps build nuance awareness and empathy by helping children practice “seeing” through someone else’s eyes. And when parents or friends get to playing together, children learn cooperation, compromise, and emotional awareness.
Toy Blocks Build Big Futures
Your child may one day play with their toy blocks for the last time, but none of these developing skills and lessons end in childhood. In fact, what your child learns and practices now will carry through their adolescent and adult experiences, proficiencies, and patterns of behavior. Adults who engaged in pretend- and story-driven play in childhood are often more creative and capable of innovation, more socially adaptable, and more resilient in work and relationships. In other words, that childhood habit of asking—and practicing—“what if?” becomes a powerful tool for imagining successful, possibility-rich futures.
We at Understory invite you to join us in our mission to empower children to become capable, confident creators of their futures.
Members receive exclusive play resources, printable guides, and early access to our coming story-driven play products—plus opportunities to be part of our literacy mission through events, workshops, and shared resources.
