Drawing: The Consequential Progression of Ideas

This paper examines the role that drawing plays in young children's learning and knowledge construction, and how drawing can help them elaborate their ideas. Some findings from part of a larger study of children's drawing in a class of five and six year olds in Canada are presented. The study was carried out by the author who was also the classroom teacher, supported by a research assistant and a classroom assistant. A Vygotskian socio-cultural lens was brought to examining young children's drawing processes. This showed how drawing in a social context mediated new knowledge and understanding. Examining drawing events over time, threads of children's thinking were followed to demonstrate the consequential progression of increasingly complex ideas. The findings show that drawing processes that encourage young children to talk about, share, revise, revisit and re-contextualize their drawings can extend and elaborate thinking.