© Copyright M. Worthington & E. Carruthers 2012 |
June/July 2013 |
Using
scribble-marks
Young
children use scribble-marks
investing them with personal meaning
(Matthews, ; Carruthers and
Worthington, 2006, 2011). Recent
research by Worthington has revealed
how they also use scribbles as
‘place-holders’ to signify some
graphical communication in their
play. All young children do this,
seemingly to avoid slowing the flow
of their play narrative, including
those who – in different contexts–
use letters, words, numerals and
realistic drawings.
|
 |
David’s spider
Prior to
visiting the forest, David drew a
‘spider’. He represented each leg,
counting 1 - 15 in sequence, and
then 17,18, 19, 20, 25.’
He then
proceeded to enclose the legs with a
spider web and blacked out the
spider’s face, explaining, ‘It’s all
the flies on his face’. |
David’s message
On
another occasion when David was
playing outside, he asked his
teacher Emma to write ‘Help me go up
on the hill - Remi is stopping me!’
Emma did
this, then suggested that David
wrote his own. David did so, reading
his rapidly drawn circular marks, as
‘Remi can’t come on the hill’.
|
 |
Taxonomy:
Making and communicating meanings in
social pretend play and
other child-initiated contexts - graphics
(drawing, maps and writing) |
|
May
2013 |
Writing Names -
Exploring Symbols

Graphicacy: making meanings
with visual marks, abstract signs
and other representations.
Exploring symbols is a
significant feature of all
multi-modal texts, and for this
reason we have updated the taxonomy
to acknowledge this. |
Young children’s own name is often
one of the first things they write.
Elizabeth had been talking about the
various names in her family. She was
interested in the length of
individual names and the number of
names each person had. Taking some
paper she began to make more. She
pointed to the visual signs she’d
made and read her full name. Then
pointing to others explained,
‘That’s James’s name and his second
name and his third name. James’s
second name is Thomas. My mummy had
also got a second name. My daddy
also has a second name. I think it’s
Roy.’
Elizabeth was interested in the
abstract signs she used, writing a
range of letter-like symbols and
crosses and enclosing each in a
circle. |
|
|
January-February 2013 |
Maps
Some children are fascinated by maps and
map-making. The practitioner’s role is to
support children’s interests and provide
materials to stimulate further discussion.
 |
 |
Figure
1: Tiyanni |
Figure
2: Maria and Macey |
Tiyanni was
in the garden with Macey and Maria, looking
at a map in a large old diary. Maria talked
about the time she’d gone to Jamaica and
pointed it out on the map. Tiyanni
explained, 'that’s where my Grandma and
Grandad is’ and Maria talked about the beach
on Jamaica. Picking up a blue pen Tiyanni
made some marks in the diary, explaining
‘This is swimming’ (figure 1).
Maria marked a dot on the map where Tokyo
was, saying ‘That’s where Misaki comes from’
(Misaki had been a member of staff and had
recently returned home to Japan): (figure
2). As Maria (one of the practitioners)
talked about other countries, Macey added
further dots to the map.
 |
 |
Figure
3: Macey |
Figure
4: Macey |
Turning to
another page in the diary, Macey made small
marks in two columns and said ‘That’s where
I live’ (figure 3). She then drew lines and
small marks on another page, to represent
where Tiyanni lived (figure 4).

Figure 5: Nathan
(3 years 7 months).
Tracing his spiral marks Nathan explained
‘It’s a road’, then pointing to smaller
marks in the centre – ‘Here’s the trees.’

Figure 6:
Cameron (3 years, 4 months)
Cameron pointed to a small shape he’d drawn,
‘That’s the minibus’ (that the children
travel to the forest each week). Moving his
finger along one of the circular lines he
showed where the minibus went.
See Also:
Jazper’s map,
Megan’s ‘very big fast roller coaster’ and
Max: ‘Yoda’s house’.
|
|
December 2012 |
Imaginary Stories
James
‘alien battle’ story
James (4 year 3 months) drew on both sides
of large sheet to card as he recounted his
story.
In
his first ‘episode’ he used drew
intersecting lines, circles and figurative
drawing of figures, explaining: ‘The
ducks built a snowman’ A man is drinking a
milkshake – he’s scared of the ducks and the
snowman! There’s a house and an aeroplane
with things that go round (propellers).
There’s grenades to fight the king who lives
in the house – to fight everyone!’
James developed his story on the reverse of
the card with the complex drawing shown
here:
‘The man drinking the milkshake is hiding
– he’s underneath and you can only see his
eye (within the circle at the centre). He’s
hiding from the aliens, he doesn’t want to
die. The electrics are blowing up the
aeroplane and it crashed – it’s wrecked.
Some of the electrics are broken; some of
the electrics are knotted up. The plane
dropped grenades in the shark’s mouth and on
the houses.’
James’s story appeared to have been
influenced by the ‘robot fighting games’ –
console games he played with his 10-year-old
brother. His drawings seemed to have
provided him with a safe space to explore
images that may have troubled him.
Visual
stories
This sort of visual narrative has been
likened to films which move ‘in and out of
an overall plot scheme but do [not] conform
to the conventions of having a clear-cut
beginning, middle and end. Instead it is
similar to fantasy-based play on paper’
(Wright, 2010: 45). John Matthews has made
detailed analysis of young children’s
developing marks and drawings, terming their
early marks as ‘generational structures’. In
James’s drawings a number of these
structures can be identified, including
closed shapes, continuous lines angular
attachments and ‘u’ shapes on a baseline’
(Matthews, 1999).
Wright, S. (2010) Understanding
Creativity in Early Childhood. London:
Sage Publications.
Matthews, J. (1999) The Art of
Childhood and Adolescence: the Construction
of Meaning. London: Falmer Press.
|
|
March 2013 |
Lists
 |
 |
Finnian (4 years, 3
months)
was rolling marbles down a slope
with friends He chose to keep a
score for the two teams,
using tallies and
circles to enclose each team’s
score. Counting both team’s score he
decided to make them equal – then
drew a horizontal line to show that
(in his view) the teams had tied. |
Baylee (5 years, 0
months)
decided to ask her friends their
ages. The children in this class
were 4 and 5 year olds. Baylee
represented her findings using
numerals and ticks. Three
children mentioned that they had
siblings (of 2 and 7 years). Finally
she asked her teacher how old she
was (35). |
 |
 |
Robbie (4 years 2
months)
was playing cars outside with his
friends. When several children had
pretended to fill their vehicles
with petrol, he wrote down how much
each ‘customer’ had to pay, ticking
them off as they pretended to do so.
|
Francine (4 years, 5
months)
was decided to write the ‘biggest
numbers she knew.
Fascinated by the
quantity of zeros needed, she
explained to friends nearby ‘you
have to put 6 zeros!’ then read out
the numbers she had written. |
See Also:
Lauren,
Tim, William, Callum and Chloë
Taxonomy:
Making meanings in pretence,
imagination and role-play
including drawing, maps and
writing.
Also: Written number and quantities -
Representing quantities that are not
counted; Representing quantities that are
counted
|
|
November 2012 |
Lists
In settings
that support children’s meaning making and
are rich in graphicacy, drawing on their
home cultural knowledge young children will
spontaneously use a wide range of writing
genres to communicate their ideas in play.
These examples of early lists cross the
boundaries of drawing, writing and
mathematics, enabling children to experiment
with the different symbolic systems.
In the first
example above, Nathan (3 years 7
months) was playing shops. He used crosses
to convey meaning for the shopping list he
made, reading ‘carrots, potatoes and
spaghetti’. As Clay (1975) showed, in their
emergent writing young children will
sometimes repeatedly use a symbol they know to convey
their ideas. Research has also shown the
amazing versatility and power in children’s
spontaneous use of crosses, using them to
represent a wide variety of things in their
drawings and maps, as well as in their
emergent writing and their mathematical
graphics. (Worthington, 2009).
In the second
example an adult commented on the marks 3
year old Sameeha had made, observing
‘You’ve made a pattern.’ But Sameeha was
clear about her intention, explaining ‘It
isn’t a pattern – it’s lists!’ In this
example it appeared that Sameeha was
imitating the action of writing a list, with
one item beneath another down the page.
For further
examples of children making lists, see:
Amelia’s shopping list and Liana’s
‘Picture for my Mum’ in
Gallery 5 and
‘Making dinner registers’ and Chloe’s
dinner register in
Gallery 4.
Clay, M.
(1975) What did I write? London:
Heinemann.
Worthington.
M. (2009) 'Fish in the water of culture:
signs and symbols in young children’s
drawing', Psychology of Education Review
Volume 33, Number 1, March 2009.
Taxonomy:
Making meanings in pretence and
imagination
|
|