May 2010

James is a young four-year old and in his first term at school. Registers have personal meaning to young children as they think about their peers and identify each, enacting the teacher’s role. At nursery and school writing ‘registers’ is often a preoccupation in children’s play.

In this instance James has used a range of letter-like signs, written from left to right. He understands that writing in our alphabetic script uses different letters and has thought about some of their features. He also includes short zigzags, perhaps encoding his sense of the appearance of cursive ‘writing’, or capturing the movement of an adult’s hand as she writes,

James - 'Seeing who's here'

Imagination and symbolic play: making meaning with marks for writing

April 2010

Transforming signs and meanings

Melanie made marks on a piece of paper - then taking some scissors, made cuts at the bottom at the top and removed portions of paper. She lifted the paper and moving it across the table called happily to the other children ‘She’s dancing!’ Adding more marks she explained ‘She’s got a pretty dress’ and then explained that this was ‘A lady dancing’.

By the next day Melanie had altered what she had done, making several cuts across the paper. Now she explained that it was a ‘ladybird’. Her teacher thought that the change of meaning to ‘ladybird’ might have been through word-association.

Referring to children cutting out something they have drawn, Kress explains the ‘makers’ shifting interest… while it is on the page I can do “mental things” with it… when it is off the page I can do physical things with it,’ (1997: 27). Melanie explored her ideas about a ‘lady’ and ‘ladybird’ ‘multi-modally’, with the help of paper, crayons and scissors, enabling her to express and communicate personal meanings.

March 2010

Megan: “A very big fast roller coaster!”

Megan is in the reception class (the first year of school in England). This was the first of three drawings Megan drew at home about fairground rides, including a Ferris wheel and ‘a runaway train’.

Megan’s drawing suggests the route the roller coaster took, its undulating and rapid movement and shows its many seats. Megan told her mum ‘This is a very big fast roller coaster!’ Her mother explained ‘Megan was thinking about how much she’d love to go to a funfair again’.

Megan recalled some of the different rides with excitement and used the drawings as a means of persuading her family that they should take her again.

Communicating meanings through graphicacy
Children use their graphics for a wide range of communicative purposes, to sometimes face and explore anxieties and to feel in control or to develop, negotiate and justify their sense of belonging (in their family and peer group).

They reveal how new media, technologies and popular culture exert influence on both their feelings and their representations and – as in Megan’s example – they show how children also use their graphics to persuade.

February 2010

Max (Nursery)– ‘Yoda’s house

Max drew on his personal interest of the ‘Star Wars’ films in his representation of ‘Yoda’s house’. Although he didn’t give any explain for the details he had drawn, his drawing suggests a plan or a map, with various featured identified by their location on the page and their relationship with each other.

The outer green circle suggests that Max was thinking about the inside of Yoda’s house, and the different arrangements and shapes (of lines and other abstract symbols) suggest that he used them to convey very specific meaning).

Max included an arrow pointing inwards (lower right). Our research has shown that arrows play a distinct role in children’s own early calculations. see:

• Carruthers, E. and Worthington, M. (2008) 'Children's mathematical graphics: young children calculating for meaning' in I. Thompson, (Ed.) (2008) Teaching and Learning Early Number, Maidenhead: Open University Press, (2nd ed.).

December 2009

In the nursery, Daniel had been playing shops and decided to make a sign to show when the shop was ‘open’ and another to show that it was ‘closed’. His teacher had noticed what he was doing and Daniel explained:

Daniel: It’s closed now, the café is closed
Adult: How do I know it’s closed?
Daniel: Look here, see? Closed, that means it’s closed.

Daniel pointed to his drawing of face crossed out on chalk board and rubbing it out he drew a smiling face without a cross:

Daniel: Look! Open that means its open now... Oh dear...

Drawing a cross over his drawing of a face he explained 'it’s closed'.

Young children use crosses in a variety of contexts to signify different meanings in drawings: they also use them to stand for writing. This flexibility of sign-use is highly significant in supporting children as their understanding of the abstract written language of mathematics evolves.

November 2009

See also: Aman’s boat

Other children may use zigzags to signify fierce animals (e.g. crocodiles, monsters); lightening; water or stairs. They are generalising about a graphical sign and also understand that they can be used flexibly. You may like to look out for lines, crosses and other symbols in children’s graphics (e.g. drawing, writing, maps and mathematics).

For more examples, see: 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.

October 2009

Felix (4 years 1 month) used pens to make these busy marks. Afterwards he explained it was ‘night-time’.

Young children often attach their own meanings to their graphics after noticing something in their marks and representations.

September 2009

Aman (4 years 3 months) was playing outside near the sandpit. She found a twig and began scratching in the sand that had spilt on the ground, drawing what she described as ‘boats’. She completed the top of each ‘boat’ with a wavy line explaining this was ‘water’.

By combining the curved line of the boat’s hull with the wavy (or zigzag) line it appeared that she was communicating (in one sign) boat-on-water.

Children explore, make, think about, encode, transform and communicate meanings through their own marks and signs in flexible ways. This helps them understand that signs can be used to carry different meanings (in different contexts and for different purposes) - including mathematics.

In the following months we will provide further examples of children's graphicacy.

Graphicacy