My PhD research project is centred on the communicative potential of young children's drawings. Drawing is an activity that most young children enjoy and there is much evidence to show how it can offer them a powerful means of communicating their ideas, experiences and feelings. However, The Practice Guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stage (DfES, 2008) contains mixed messages: some positive things are said about drawing, but drawing as a form of communication is predominantly seen as a pre-writing skill. This view needs to be corrected as it undermines the complexity and richness of young children's drawings that often belies their apparent simplicity (Coates & Coates 2006). My work builds on that of researchers such as Anning and Ring (2004) Brooks (2005) and Dockett and Perry (2005) who have used socio-cultural theory to explore the influence of context on young children's drawing, meaning making and representation at home and in school. Summary of the project In the school year 2007/8 I made regular visits to a mixed reception/year one class in a school in rural South West England in order to explore what and how young children communicate through drawing, as well as what influences their drawings. There were 14 children involved in my project: eight girls and six boys aged between 4 years, 8 months and 5 years, 11 months. In this article I will focus on the drawings of the three reception children, who were all boys. Each child was given two scrapbooks in which to collect their drawings: one for school and one for home. I discussed the drawings with the children, with the class teacher, and with the children's parents, as well as conducting classroom observations. The children were asked to choose their own 'project names' and throughout the research, in line with Wood's (2005) advice, the children were recognised as expert informers and witnesses regarding their own experiences and perspectives. In the autumn term, over the first of three seven-week research phases, 374 drawings were collected, and the reception boys made 51 of these. Besides looking at the content of the drawings and the children's motivations and intentions, the drawings were analysed in terms of use of drawing media, use of colour, the inclusion of writing and numbers, and paper use. (In order to avoid bias, colleagues were also asked to analyse some of the data.) I was fascinated by what I found in terms of diversity, richness, creativity, and humour. Below I will share a small selection of the reception boys' drawings and discuss the significance of these. Red Dragon Paine (1992) tells us that it is important to look at young children's spontaneous drawings because they reflect children's interests, rather than adult's expectations. Music was a particular interest of Red Dragon's and some of his drawings featured musical notes/and or him singing. Below is one such example, produced at home, and includes fireworks. This was inspired by a family visit to a fireworks display. Of the three reception boys, Red Dragon was the most prolific in his drawing: he produced 39 drawings in total (30 from home and 9 from school). However, this did not mean that he was consistently a confident drawer; his dad commented that: 'He wants to draw it properly...he gets a bit frustrated by it not coming out [of his head]. His brother's trait as well!' When drawing at home, Red Dragon wanted to show a waterwheel moving around he wasn't quite sure how to do this, so he added a speech bubble to explain the intended action. (The thought of a waterwheel speaking made Red Dragon laugh when he told me about it.) He had recently become particularly interested in writing, and interestingly, he was the only reception boy to include any writing, other than a name, on his drawings. (In total 7 of his drawings featured writing.) This example shows how he made good use of his literacy skills to address a drawing problem. Below is another example of Red Dragon's problem solving. Although most of his drawings were self-motivated, his mum explained how she had sat opposite her son and had shown him how to draw a cat's face by making a t-shape, like a teddy bear. She drew upside down for Red Dragon to copy, but instead of drawing what he could see he reversed the t-shape, as it would appear to his mum. (This can be seen on the red cat's face.) Being able to 'see' something from someone else's perspective is quite a mature ability and this impressed his mum. Sonny Sonny's mum described him as 'a little doodler', who preferred construction to drawing and Faye, the class teacher, also noted that this was the case in school. In total, 6 drawings were collected from Sonny (4 from home and 2 from school). His mum added that: 'I think he knows that his skill doesn't match what's in his head' Keen to support the development of Sonny's drawing skills, his mum had bought some how to draw books and explained that Sonny would draw from these if she drew with him. However, he especially liked to copy the drawing of skateboards etc. made by his older brother and would sometimes also request drawings from his parents to copy. Here is an example of one of Sonny's doodle-type drawings. It includes a rocket (in the top left), along with a snail, a wardrobe, some graffiti, some m's and some other unidentified objects. There does not appear to be any connection between the individual elements and Sonny did not offer any further explanation about them. Matthews (1999, p.126) observation helps to explain this: 'Usually young children use the drawing surface as a physical target on which everything they are considering is shown, like a small playground...' This would account for the apparent randomness; Sonny is putting down things as they occur to him, as if he was emptying his pockets. The graffiti, his mum explained, was probably something that he had copied from his brother who often practised graffiti-type writing. This points to the influence of siblings on children's drawings. (Here, I haven't counted the m's as writing in my analysis as they are individual letters and also have more of a decorative quality in the context of Sonny's drawing). This drawing illustrates the importance of not making assumptions about what different objects in a child's drawing might be. Although it looks like there are two suns here the 'sun' at the bottom of the drawing is actually a lion. Sonny told me that the small shape in the middle was a duck and the large shape on the right was a swan; however I later discovered that he had described the same shape to his mum as a motorbike track! I tried not to guess what the children had drawn as I did not want to influence their descriptions, but this was not always easy to avoid in the 'natural' research conversations. Sometimes the children would change their minds about what the different parts of their drawings represented, but this did not happen very frequently. The drawing above was produced at school and shows a monster/dragon trying to smell the sun. (The blue shape is a pond, even though it appears to be floating in the sky.) In contrast to the composition of Sonny's other drawings, this one features a baseline, which is often seen as a significant development in young children's drawings, certainly from a stage theory perspective. However, stage theory is criticised for being based on a 'deficit' model where visual realism is the ultimate goal (Anning & Ring, 2004). The aim of my project is not to value realistic drawings above any other; therefore the noting of the baseline is just of passing interest here. Nick Like Sonny, Nick also preferred construction activities to drawing and only 6 drawings were collected from him (2 from home and 4 from school). His mum explained that: 'I don't think he thinks his drawings are very good and he doesn't like that it's not exactly what he's trying to draw...so he loses confidence.' One theme that Nick did feel confident drawing was monsters and other fantasy characters. Below is a one-eyed monster, drawn at school. Faye, the class teacher, pointed out that Nick also produced a one-eyed monster in an ICT lesson, which was displayed on the classroom wall. The one eye, according to his mum, was an important feature of a monster. According to Gardner (1980) children approach their drawing in different ways depending on whether they are patterners who are interested in observable regularities in their environment, or dramatists who prefers to depict stories. The drawing below, produced at home, has an element of drama. Nick drew his brother, sister and dad inside a rocket, on their way to Mars. When I asked if he was also travelling with them, he said that, although it would have been good to draw himself he did not. (Perhaps this was because there are only three windows?) He pointed out the rocket boosters, highlighting his knowledge about how rockets are propelled into space. The shape on the left of the drawing is the launch pad, which Nick was not particularly pleased with as he thought that he had drawn it upside down, and it was also supposed to be straight. Nick was one of the few children in my study who volunteered evaluative comments about his drawings. However, this observation led him to remark that the launch pad looked like a banana and he found this highly amusing. At home Nick had some guidance from his mum, who painted a dragon's head for him when he was unsure how to do it himself. Interestingly, a couple of weeks later Nick used a similar style in a drawing produced at school, shown below. I was observing at the time and noticed how Nick abandoned a volcano drawing and started this one when he noticed that Sonny, who was sitting across the table, was drawing a dragon. This points to the influence of peers on children's drawings. However, Nick's drawing was quite different from Sonny's and I observed how he took great care in adding the required detail, such as scales, claws, and sharp teeth. This really impressed his mum, particularly as in the painting he forgot to put any spikes and she thought he'd purposely made up for this omission in his dragon drawing. None of Nick's drawings were coloured and he always said this was because he didn't want any colour (the green section is where I have blanked out his name to ensure anonymity). Implications for practice Fantasy was a common theme of the boys' drawings, but it was particularly interesting that the parents of all three boys said that their sons were often frustrated when what they were trying to draw didn't match what they had in their heads. I did not have any reception girls to make any direct gender comparisons, but the year one girls in my study seemed to be more confident drawers than the boys, including those in year one. This raises interesting questions as to why this might be, but unfortunately I can't answer them here. However, I can suggest some general implications for practice: Firstly, each individual had his own unique ideas and means of expression. The drawings were influenced by various factors, but they were mostly self-motivated and therefore personally significant. Most of the drawings were produced at home, but even in more formal learning contexts it is important that young children are given time and space to create drawings (and painting, models etc.) that are spontaneous and meaningful. This is not to say that requested drawings cannot be meaningful, but it is misguided to judge young children's drawings in terms of realism or expect each child's to look the same. Secondly, it is important that practitioners (and parents) engage children in conversations about their drawings in order to fully understand their interests and intentions, and to also show that their drawings are valued (Davis, 2005). If the conversations are natural and enjoyable the children might then be more likely to volunteer information, as I found as my study progressed. Conversations need only take a few minutes, but sensitive questioning could lead to useful insights (e.g. tell me about your drawing...who is this, what are they doing/thinking, where did your idea come from? etc.). These insights could aid practitioners with assessment and also help in planning relevant and worthwhile learning activities, linked to the children's drawing interests. Finally, practitioners (and parents) shouldn't feel that offering guidance to support children's drawings might in some way disturb their creativity. After all, activities like writing are frequently modelled and supported in the classroom (Kress, 2000). Faye, the class teacher, often drew for the children and also invited them to offer feedback on her drawings. If we want both boys and girls to enjoy drawing, and make the most of their skills, then they must see that we enjoy drawing and find it a useful way of communicating too. References Anning, A. & Ring, K. (2004). Making sense of children's drawings. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Brooks, M. (2005). Bringing a Vygotskian socio-cultural lens to young children drawing: Engaging, collaborating and communicating. Research paper presented at the Art and Early Childhood conference, Froebel College, Roehampton University, July 2005. Coates, E., & Coates, A. (2006). Young children talking and drawing. International Journal of Early Years Education. 14 (3) 221-241. Davis, J. H. (2005) Framing Education as Art: The octopus has a good day. New York, NY: Teachers' College Press. Department for Education and Skills. (2008). Practice guidance for the early years foundation stage. London: HMSO. Dockett, S. & Perry, B. (2005). Children's drawings: experiences and expectations of school. International Journal of Equity and Innovation in Early Childhood. 3 (2) 77-89. Gardner, H. (1980). Artful scribbles: The significance of children's drawings. London: Jill Norman. Kress, G. (2000). Before writing: Rethinking the paths to literacy. (2nd ed). London: Routledge. Matthews, J. (1999) The art of childhood and adolescence: The construction of meaning. London: Falmer Press. Paine, S. (1992). Conflicting paradigms of vision in drawing development research. In Thistlewood, D., Paine, S., & Court, E. (1992). (Eds). Drawing research and development. Harlow: Longman, 1-13. Wood, E. (2005). Young children's voices and perspectives in research: Methodological and ethical considerations. International Journal of Equity and Innovation in Early Childhood. 3 (2) 64-76.
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