Examining young children’s transitions from drawing into early writing

Examining young children’s progressions in drawing, from scribble lines to graphic representations of people, places, and objects—to their writing of alphabetic symbols—may open windows into knowledge of early cognitive, language, and motor development. In the present mixed-method investigation, we first review prior literature on such transitions, which includes discussion of the stages or sequences of mark-making, drawing, and early writing. We then discuss existing measures of human figure drawings, name writing, early writing, oral language (mean length of utterance of the child’s descriptions of each drawing/writing sample), and content themes. Next, for five children aged 3-5 years attending a university-affiliated preschool, we examine repeated sets of drawings and early writings, ranging from 23 to 73 samples per child, from archival materials. Each case study includes both (a) narrative descriptions of each child’s progressions and (b) analyses of scores on the included measures. With the overall aim of preparing for a larger study that includes regular and more data-intensive samples subject to blinded scoring, we provide comparisons within each child and across children—featuring linear trends and high intra-individual variability– regarding development of graphic symbol systems (i.e., drawing and early writing) during the foundational preschool years.