Baby's Scribbling

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 66, 27 September 1940, Page 5

Baby's Scribbling

: You are right when you say that even very young children seem to like drawing. Almost as soon as a child can hold a pencil he begins drawing. His first drawing, possibly about the age of two years, is in the nature of random scribbling. At first these are of the zig-zag pattern. Backwards and forwards goes the pencil and what a delight the little one gets from the rhythmic motion and the realisation that a pattern is being left on the paper. Soon the scribbling takes on a rounded form-that of a series of circles. If you watch carefully you will notice that the baby uses his whole arm in the movement of drawing. It is this freedom of arm movement which gives the scribbling its pleasing rhythmic character. C.: Do these scribblings have any meaning to the very young child? Is the baby really trying to say something by the use of his scribbling? D.: At first, no. But after a few months of this random scribbling the child suddenly sees some resemblance between the shapes or masses of scribbling and the objects around him. The most common object he sees is his mother, and in all probability his developing mind sees a likeless between the scribbled mass and his mother. He then enters the stage when he deliberately tries to reproduce

the scribbled mass, that is, he begins his purposeful artistic development. Now he is trying to say something by means of a drawing. He is using the graphic or picture form of art as a means of expression in much the same way as he is developing the use of speech.-(Bruce Dawber and G. L. Campbell in "Things as Seen by a Téacher," 3Y A September 11).