The Stages of Drawing: How You Can Help Your Little One Become a Confident and Creative Artist
Whether you are a preschool teacher, a primary grade educator, or a parent of littles, you will deal with a lot of coloring and many crayons. Coloring is one of the quintessential activities of childhood, almost every kid does it at some point. It is also key to the development of writing. After all, your toddlers are trying to tell you stories, read all about that here!
Knowing the Stages of Drawing can go a long way in helping you to prepare your students and your children for success! So read on. Let me give you a quick overview of the earliest writing, the stages of drawing development!
The Early Years
At some point in your journey as a parent, you will hand your chubby, angel-faced baby a crayon. And more than likely, the first few times (and probably much more than that) the crayon will be chewed on and thrown more than drawn with. Eventually, they may put crayons on paper (or wall) and begin showing you their new skill. Random Scribbling is the first stage in drawing. Typically between the ages of 15 months and 2.5 years, a child will use crayons, markers, or pencils to make unintentional marks that are completely random. They have no direction or order. Although it may not seem like it at times, this stage is actually key to your child’s development. The more you hand them that crayon or pencil, the better they become at holding it. They are discovering and strengthening those fine motor skills that will be put to very good use as they begin to learn to write and draw letters and shapes.
Typically between 2 and 3, a child will start showing signs of the next stage, Controlled Scribbling. This is when toddlers begin to spontaneously draw in dots, circles, and back-and-forth lines. These are still very much scribbles but seem to have more of a purpose.
Pausing for an important reminder!
I must take a moment to note that EVERY CHILD IS DIFFERENT! Although most children will develop their drawing skills in this order, and around these ages, some will not! If you spend a lot of time allowing your 18-month-old to hold a crayon and scribble their heart out, they may move onto the next stage a bit sooner. Or maybe, if the child didn’t have the opportunity to color and practice drawing before the age of 3 their development will be a bit different. Kids are different, astounding, and imaginative. Don’t overly rely on these stages or panic yourself if they are a bit behind the ranges I give here.
Moving on to Lines and Patterns
As your child begins to grow out of the toddler phase and into a full-blown kid, you’ll notice even more development in their drawing skill. Rather than scribbling lines and circles, they’ll begin to draw lines, dots, and closed-form shapes. This is an exciting stage because of what is coming next!
Que the cute holiday cards and easy birthday presents!
Between the ages of 3 and 5, your child will begin the next stage, drawing people and objects! This is when kids and toddlers first begin to tell stories with their drawings. They are looking at, taking in, and then attempting to draw the world around them. You may notice funny little drawings that look like Mr. Potato Head or ladders with arms and legs. These are a big step for your little artist as they begin to draw what we call “tadpole people”. This is the first representation of a person often skipping key body parts like bodies, necks, or limbs.
During this stage (and really all the stages) it is so important to continue encouraging the child to draw new things. I try to avoid guessing what the picture is or asking questions like, “What is that?” Although this is a very typical and seemingly harmless response, guessing the wrong thing when your little one was sure that they had created a very obvious picture of a frog, and then doing that over and over again, can hinder their creativity and confidence. I suggest keeping it to encouraging words or questions like, “Tell me about your picture?”
My Preschool Drawing Unit will take you right through these stages and give you everything you need to help encourage your child as they develop their drawing skill.
Finally, your little artist will move into the last stage of drawing development and into writing development. This also typically occurs between the ages of 3 and 5. Now that they have built up confidence in their illustrations and drawings, they will begin to experiment with writing letters and words. Essentially, your child is starting to label their pictures!
A few things to remember…
Every child is different! Do not expect your students (or children!) to start and end these stages at the same time. As long as they are growing, and you are encouraging that growth, it will all be okay!
Start early and set an example! Don’t expect your child to pick up a crayon and know what to do with it on their own. Provide an example by coloring or writing in a journal in front of your child. Make it a family activity and do it often!
Ask questions and encourage! Unfortunately, it is all too easy for children to become little perfectionists. This is great in some ways but with drawing and writing and can be a big barrier to creativity and growth. A student might give up when the cow they were trying to draw wasn’t perfect! Use the phrase “Mess it up, dress it up” and show them how to make mistakes into something amazing. Artwork isn’t meant to be perfect and what’s important is that they are trying their best. Make sure students know this right away!
If you are ready to help your child grow into a confident and creative artist, you can grab my Preschool Drawing Unit! This 2-week unit is all about using scribbles to make art and developing those important fine motor skills. It is developmentally appropriate for toddlers and written so that both teachers and parents can easily teach it!
You can also start by reading my mentor text, Scribble Scrabble. It's a short children’s book all about how scribbles can be made into art! It encourages creativity and imagination, and shows children that illustrations do not have to be perfect!
