A Handbook for The Learning Window

Section Three: Drawing

 

Young children in the process of developing visual/spatial and motor skills can be helped by activities that emphasize perception of spatial relationships and coordination with motor skills.

Most children will gradually develop control of the writing instrument and the ability to produce the full range of lines, loops, circles and dots that later comprise drawings and writing. For these children the Learning Window is simply another surface to enjoy and on which to practice. Control tends to be easier to acquire because the Window is smooth and vertical, while allowing a full range of large muscle motion.

Many children are delayed or disabled in motor abilities or perceptual abilities or both. The Learning Window provides opportunities for rehearsing basic skills and for learning compensatory approaches to understanding and skill building.

Keep in mind the natural progression in children's drawing and nurture this development. Also, do not expect children to draw beyond their maturity level. Children go through progressive and predictable stages evident in their art.

Overview of Early Drawing Stages

1-Manipulative or Scribbling Stage-18 months to kindergarten

Children's' first marks reflect their motor control and the degree of motion possible to them. Gradually the scribbles become more controlled. Later the child names the scribbles to represent objects.

2-Representational or Symbol Stage-Primary grades

Children intentionally represent objects with their drawings. They name the forms they produce and develop more specific features for their symbols.

3-Social awareness or beginning realism-Upper elementary grades

Children develop personal methods for representing form which can become a visual shorthand or cliché such as stick figures and other stereotypic drawings . Many children need encouragement and practice to move to a more complex representation of form.

An extensive description of these stages can be found in the writings of Viktor Lowenfeld, Charles D. Gaitskell, and Rhoda Kellogg (see References). No stage is ever left completely behind. For example, the adult who is given unfamiliar art supplies will begin investigating them by scribbling.

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Development of Scribbling and Drawing

The young child gradually produces a wide variety of marks that evolve into predictable form. These lines are the building blocks from which future drawing and writing emerge.

Children demonstrate these scribbles in a various sequences and patterns, not in any fixed order. However most children can produce these 20 scribbles by age 3. The Learning Window is used as a tool to learn the scribble that the child is unable to form.

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Inventory of the twenty basic scribbles produced by the young child

Record of Progress

Record of Progress

Adapted from Rhoda Kellogg Analyzing Children's Art, page 15

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Initial analysis for young children needs to include general observation of motor control, enjoyment or avoidance of drawing as well as appraisal of the type of marks (scribbles) produced. Certainly children demonstrate large individual differences within the normal range. Guided exercises are for the child who is significantly delayed, produces few types of scribble, or who avoids fine motor activities.

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Development of Design Copying

Drawing of older children also develops in a sequence that is the same for most individuals. Based on work by Beery and Buktenica, we know that children develop the ability to copy key designs at predictable ages:

Record of Progress

Instructors should base their instructional goals on age appropriate expectations. Also, learning disabled children may lag significantly in their drawing development.

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Drawing With The Learning Window

Typically children who have the least control also do not enjoy drawing, coloring, and writing. Hence they do not develop compensatory routes for control.

The Learning Window is a successful tool with young children:

• It allows for use and development of both large and small muscles.
• The hands-on activities engage children with a fun game-like approach.
• The visual demands are within the capability of young children. The Window brings visual/spatial/motor activities to the level of the young child who can start working at any point of understanding and progress at any speed and to any level of capability.
• The Learning Window allows children to have a personal guide on the other side of the board to guide exercises which build control.
• The Window's generous scale permits full, large muscle movement which is easy and natural for most children.
• The vertical surface means the child is drawing at the angle he can best control.
• Finally, the transparent learning Window enables the teacher to strategically position objects in various locations (above, below, right, left) for a student to trace and draw.

These features make the Window both physically compatible with young children developing greater drawing control and effective in helping them to understand how objects "look" in space.

The basic motor activities such as tracking detailed earlier in the book should be taught as needed along with these activities.

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Images Support Drawing --
Language Supports Images

Talk from the teacher and self-talk from the child is powerful support for children as they draw. Language can both guide movement and generate an image. Imagery, in turn, stimulates and guides drawing. Imagery links the inner and outer worlds of the child.

Therefore remedial instruction on The Learning Window needs to incorporate both imagery and language.

The teacher can say the high imagery sentence in the first column to encourage the child to draw the scribble in the second column. The teacher may also draw the images if modeling is needed.

Teacher says:	Child draws:	Record of Progress:
"I am drawing one finger."	1. Single vertical line
"Grass, grass, grass. Let's make grass."	2. Multiple vertical lines
"Now my finger is flat."	3. Single horizontal line
"The wind blew all our grass sideways."	4. Multiple horizontal lines
"Look, my line is the side of a hill...and the other side."	5. Single diagonal line
"It is raining and the wind is blowing the rain."	6. Multiple diagonal lines
"I made a smile."	7. Single curved line
"I made many smiles."	8. Multiple curved lines
"Freckles."	9. Dots
"I am dizzy and walking all over."	10. Roving open lines
"I am walking all over and around and around puddles."	11. Roving enclosing line
"Up and down and up and down and up and..."	12. Zigzag or waving line
"I am a plane going up and around, swoop!"	13. Single loop line
"I am flying up and around, and up and around."	14. Multiple loop line
"I am tickling a snail by walking around his shell."	15. Spiral line
"I am digging a hole by going around and around."	16. Multiple overlaid circles
"I am making a path around a puddle."	"17. Multiple line circles
"My pen is making crazy bike circles."	18. Circular line spread out
"I am making a head. The hair can stick out."	19. Single crossed line
"Careful. Careful. I am making a ring."	20. Imperfect circle

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Shared Drawing Experiences

If the child is reluctant to do exercises, various shared drawing experiences on the Learning Window can accomplish the same objectives. The teacher's approach needs to move the child naturally into action but in a relaxed manner. Avoid apologies such as "I can't draw." Plan the exercise as a tool for skill development, but allow the child to make choices and to remain in control of the drawing. Each exercise is designed to produce rhythmic continuous strokes.

"Lets make a river together"		Record of Progress
"I will draw the horse. You draw the mane"
"Let's make lots of rain."
" Let's finish the house."

These exercises are steps to help the child gain sufficient motor control and visual-spatial abilities to venture into drawing and painting. They are not a substitute for the child's free expression.

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Go to the next section of The Learning Window Handbook: References

Go back to the beginning of The Learning Window Handbook

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ARK Institute of Learning 1916 South Washington St. Tacoma, WA 98405 Phone (253)573-0311 Fax (253)573-0211 E-mail ARKfdn@aol.com or cstockdale@ARKInst.org

Copyright © 1996, 1998 ARK Institute of Learning
Permission is granted to copy for clinical or instructional purposes but not for commercial use.

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