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One moment your child is an astronaut. The next, “whoosh!”—the rocket itself. And just as quickly your child switches roles in pretend play from being an “actor” to a “director,” arranging play figures in their outer space roles. Your child has entered a peak period of pretend play that helps prepare young minds for reading comprehension and creative thinking. Here are some tips to help feed your child’s imagination.

Toys jump start imagination

When you provide toys with realistic, representational features, you give your child needed hints and cues for “jumping off” into imaginative play. Familiar settings—a doll house, play tent, camper or garage—help children move naturally from imitation to reinvented experience to totally imagined events. More fanciful settings, like castles or pirate ships, inspire action play that preschoolers enjoy even though they don’t see knights or pirates in real life. By play acting characters, children transfer themselves into another era and begin to understand history. Playsets provide the stage for your child’s imaginative thinking to soar.

Make believe prepares young minds for reading

From a campsite in the living room, your child “hears” owls and crickets and pretends to roast marshmallows. What looks like fun is also a great accomplishment. Now your child has the power to change the immediate environment just by thinking. Through imaginative play, children picture in their minds what’s happened or what could happen. Not surprisingly, this kind of play uses the same parts of the brain used in reading comprehension, the ability to understand and imagine what words represent. The experience of make-believe, fostered by a play environment you can provide, helps prepare your child’s mind for comprehension, an important element in reading.

Pretend play fosters social play

At three and four, your child will probably still act out everyday life, but he or she will also add make-believe scenes that never really happened. The teddy bear that once served as a silent playmate now comes alive with its own personality and speech. And, because preschoolers are beginning to want to play with other children, your child may have begun to include others in imaginative play. By providing role-play props or toys with figures and vehicles, you give children something to talk about or to play act together, helping initiate their early attempts at social interaction. Imaginative play opens up new avenues of social interaction.