The Old Fashioned Kids With Only Three Dots on Top of 1/2 and 1/3

How Your Child's Writing and Art Changes Over Time

Inventiveness is a span to learning. When your child is creative and curious, she can come up with answers to the problems she encounters—similar how to keep the block tower from falling. Inventiveness helps your child get a thoughtful, inquisitive, and confident learner subsequently, when she starts school.

One of the most important ways that your toddler is tuning in to her creativity is past experimenting with art materials. As she grabs that mesomorphic crayon and gets to work, you will meet her art and writing change and become more controlled and complex as she grows.

For very immature children, art and early writing skills are one and the same. At first, it'southward all nigh just figuring out what these absurd things chosen crayons tin can do. And so your kid discovers the link betwixt her paw holding the crayon and the line she fabricated on the folio: Presto! She experiences the power of cause-and-effect. Imagine how exciting this must be for her! She tin now make a existent "mark" on the earth. This leap in thinking skills is helped along past her new power to hold things in her easily and fingers. The growing control your child has over the muscles in her hands lets her move a mark or paintbrush with purpose and with a goal in mind.

For very immature children, there are four stages of drawing and writing that you lot may run into as your child grows from fifteen months old to 3 years old. Note that the timetables listed below are approximate; your kid may principal these skills faster or slower and still be developing just fine. Growth doesn't happen at the same speed for every kid, but by offering repeated fun experiences with a variety of fine art and writing materials, you volition see forward progress over fourth dimension.

Stage 1: Random Scribbling (15 months to 2½ years)

This is the period when young children are just figuring out that their movements upshot in the lines and scribbles they run across on the folio. These scribbles are usually the result of large movements from the shoulder, with the crayon or mark held in the kid's fist. There is joy in creating art at all ages, only at this stage especially, many children relish the feedback they are getting from their senses: the way the crayon feels, the smell of the pigment, the squishy-ness of the clay.

For other children, this sensory data may be too much and they may non enjoy some art activities at this stage (similar finger-painting). As they grow to tolerate more sensory input, you lot can incrementally re-introduce art activities into their routine.

Phase two: Controlled Scribbling (ii years to 3 years)

As children develop meliorate command over the muscles in their hands and fingers, their scribbles brainstorm to change and become more controlled. Toddlers may make repeated marks on the page—open circles, diagonal, curved, horizontal, or vertical lines. Over time, children make the transition to holding the crayon or marker between their thumb and pointer finger.

Stage 3: Lines and Patterns (2½ years to three½ years)

Children now understand that writing is fabricated upwards of lines, curves, and repeated patterns. They try to imitate this in their ain writing. So while they may not write bodily messages, you may see components of letters in their drawing. These might include lines, dots, and curves. This is an exciting time as your toddler realizes that his drawing conveys meaning! For example, he may write something down and so tell yous what word it says. This is an important step toward reading and writing.

Stage 4: Pictures of Objects or People (3 years to five years)

Many adults remember of "pictures" as a pic of something. This ability to hold an image in your heed and so stand for it on the page is a thinking skill that takes some time to develop. At starting time, children name their unplanned creations. This means that they finish the flick and then characterization their masterpiece with the names of people, animals, or objects they are familiar with. This changes over time.

Before long you volition come across your child clearly planning prior to drawing what he will create. You will also see more detail in the pictures, more control in the way your kid handles the crayon or mark, and the use of more colors. What else to exist on the sentinel for? Children'southward first pictures often build off circles. So, you may see a dominicus—an irregular circumvolve, with lots of stick "rays" shooting out—or a person (normally a circle with roughly recognizable human being features).

Once your kid has begun to purposefully draw images, she has mastered symbolic thinking. This important milestone in thinking skills ways that your child understands that lines on newspaper can exist a symbol of something else, similar a house, a cat, or a person. At this stage, your kid also begins to sympathize the divergence betwixt pictures and writing. So you may see him describe a moving picture and so scribble some "words" underneath to describe what he has drawn or to tell a story. When your child is able to share his story with you, he will be motivated to "author" more than and more work every bit he grows.

Stage 5: Letter and Give-and-take Exercise (three to v years)

Children have had experience with letters and impress for several years at present and are beginning to utilize letters in their own writing. Commonly children start by experimenting with the letters in their own names, as these are most familiar to them. They likewise make "pretend messages" by copying familiar letter of the alphabet shapes, and volition often assume that their created letter must be real because it looks like other letters they have seen (Robertson, 2007).

During this time, children too brainstorm to empathize that some words are fabricated of symbols that are shorter and some words are fabricated of symbols that are longer. Equally a issue, their scribbles change. Rather than one long cord of letters or letter-similar shapes, your kid's writing at present has short and long patterns that look similar words or sentences. While these messages and words are probably not technically correct, it does not affair. This exciting milestone means that your child is get-go to understand that text and print have significant.

What Tin Y'all Do to Encourage Fine art and Writing Skills

Brand art a regular part of playtime.

Offering chunky, easy-to-grip crayons, thick pencils, and washable markers. Cut paper bags up to draw on. Sometimes it helps young children out if you record the paper down on the tabular array and then information technology doesn't motility as they draw. Equally your kid grows, you can include washable paints, child-prophylactic scissors and glue, and bootleg salt-dough as role of your child's creative fourth dimension. (For salt-dough recipes, check the Internet or your local library.) Let your child wear an old shirt of yours (with sleeves cut off) as a smock and lay newspaper or an old shower curtain over the table to keep it clean.

No need for instructions.

Let your kid experiment and explore. Creativity means having the power to limited yourself in your own way (Lagoni et al., 1989). This independence is just what a growing toddler is looking for to feel confident, competent, and clever. By sitting nearby, observing, and taking pleasure in your child's creation, you lot are providing all the guidance he needs.

Notice the process, not simply the product.

As parents, we often tend to compliment children on their successes: What's that a movie of? A house? That's neat! And sometimes nosotros go hung up on the fact that copse should be green, non regal. Sometimes we quiz: What's the name of that colour? But children learn more when nosotros don't focus so much on what they are drawing, just on what they are thinking about their cartoon. Take a few moments to find your child's work: Await at the lines y'all are making—at that place are so many of them! Or, That motion picture is actually interesting. Those colors brand me experience happy. Or, I meet you are working actually hard on your cartoon. Or just: Tell me virtually your picture show. And then see if your child is interested in sharing more.

Experiment with a variety of art materials as your child nears 3.

Allow children pigment with cotton assurance, q-tips, sponges, string—you lot proper name it. Requite your child crayons and rub over a textured surface (like a money or a screen). Draw with chalk outside on a sidewalk; see how h2o changes the colour of the chalk. Add powdered paint or glitter to your child's sand play. Or add a new dimension to h2o play past calculation drops of washable food coloring to the water. What happens when yous mix ii different colors of h2o together?

Use art to help your child express potent feelings.

Is your kid having a tantrum? Offer some play-dough or set out the markers and paper and suggest she brand a very, very angry moving picture. Creative activities tin sometimes help children express and make sense of feelings that are too intense for them to share in words.

Encourage your kid's attempts to write.

If your child scribbles something then tells you what he "wrote," take it seriously. Permit him take his "shopping list" to the supermarket or post his (scribbled) letter of the alphabet to Grandma. This is how children learn that words are powerful and take meaning.

Display your child'due south art and writing.

This is how your kid knows her work is valued and important.

Artistic activities assist children to learn how to solve problems, come upwards with their own answers, discover the cause-and-effect of their actions, and feel confident nearly the choices they brand. Art experiences aid children develop independence inside limits, and gives them the opportunity to correspond their ideas on paper or in other formats. Most important, creative expression lets children tap into the magic of their own imaginations—which is what beingness a child is all almost.

Resource and References

Farrell-Kirk, R. (2007 Feb). Tips on agreement and encouraging your kid's artistic development. Downloaded on June x, 2008.

Gable, S. (2000). Creativity in young children. Academy of Missouri Extension. Downloaded on June ten, 2008.

Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service. (n.d.). My child is an artist! The stages of artistic development. Downloaded on June 10, 2008.

Lagoni, Fifty. S., Martin, D. H., Maslin-Cole, C., Melt, A., MacIsaac, K., Parrill, Yard., Bigner, J., Coker, E., & Sheie, S. (1989). Practiced times being creative. In Good times with child care (pp. 239–253). Fort Collins, CO: Colorado Country University Cooperative Extension. Downloaded on June x, 2008.

Levinger, L, & Mott, A. (north.d.). Developmental phases in art. Downloaded on June ten, 2008.

Robertson, R. (2007, July/Baronial). The meaning of marks: Understanding and nurturing immature children's writing development. Child Intendance Exchange, 176, xl–44.

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