Creative dramatics or child-oriented dramatic play is a basic educative process that draws upon the learning strategies developed in children's play and relates them to classroom learning tasks. As a structured play process that encourages children to explore the world in ways familiar to them, creative dramatics relates new experiences to old ones, increases the range of associations of familiar words and objects, and adds to the base of adaptive responses. In the classroom, activities such as pantomime, story dramatization, and sensitivity exercises are most effective when the teacher provides a definite structure, establishes limits, and follows these guidelines: the child is the center of every creative dramatics activity; children proceed at their own rate without fear of failure; and there is an on-going evaluation process. When dramatics is linked to the reading process, the child's understanding of the written material is enhanced and the reading process becomes more enjoyable. (Dramatic play exercises are appended.) (MAI)