Figurative drawing is a part of language development that is overlooked in education. Elementary students are required to illustrate their writing from kindergarten sentences to
fifth grade essays. And yet, we don't teach figurative drawing to our young students, illustration seems vestigial, a decorative afterthought when in fact the student has been visualizing through the whole activity.
In the aquisition and practice of written language, visual language plays an important part and is the basis of idea formation and creativity. You have to be able to visualize an idea before you can write about it. Visual language is everywhere, even science magazines have flashy illustrations to make a new and complex idea accessible to their readers. In order to sell a movie a story board is needed as well as a script. Practical drawing is the expressive language of creativity.
Drawing plays an important part in the
sequence of acquiring written language: drawing – forming uppercase letters –
labeling – writing lowercase letters - writing sentences. There is a tendency to skip drawing or see it
as stifling to creativity. Art is generally non objective. Visual
symbolic language is conceptual. It fosters visualization and
creative expression. There is a direct correlation between writing a word and drawing a simple figure. Visual language is as much a code as written language. A cat has pointy ears and whiskers, without the pointy ears it is ambiguous just a ct means nothing without an a.
Knowing basic visual information gives anyone the ability to communicate an idea.
Drawing is the language of creativity. Drawing is conceptual. Drawing can be specific and also general. Many of the characteristics of written language can be found in representational drawing. Drawing uses coded information just like spelling.
Preschoolers think visually and can be
trained to express their ideas with drawing the same way as Kindergarteners are
taught to spell. They can't write yet, but they can draw. They can create books and invent ideas. They can use information.
How do we teach 4-5 year old children who
are too old for nursery and too young for Kindergarten? They should learn to express themselves in
pictures while they discover letters because they can and there
is so much to be learned about language, visualization, creativity and
conceptual thought through drawing at this potent age. In fact almost anything that can be expressed in writing can be expressed in visual language.
For tools and ideas for using visual language in your classroom visit beginnerswork.com.
Next: The case for uppercase…
My first little lessons begins a series of lessons for children 3-6, that offer opportunities teach pre-reading and pre-writing as well as fine motor and cognitive skills. This book designed for Nursery, has been used in the classroom with great success. Establish a routine of one little lesson a day and your student will be on her way to mastering important early skills. Each lesson is repeated to reinforce the learning. Children take great pride in completing their lessons and when you work with each child you will be spending important quality time. This series is available as a spiral bound book at beginnerswork books as a spiral bound book or at TPT as a reproducible E-Packet.
