CONTEXT: pretend play

David’s shopping list: nursery 3 years
 

David’s curving, zigzagging marks are writing-like scribbles, beginning ‘around the age of three years when children notice and imitate adults’ linear arrangements of writing that are similar to their own scribbles’ (Worthington and van Oers 2015; Machón 2013).

David also added some vertical marks (lower left) and a circle, both separate graphic symbols ‘midpoint between graphic symbols and writing signs’ (Machón 2013: 322).

David read his shopping list as ‘‘I’m going shopping to get sausages, beans and peas’.

Machón, A. 2013. Children’s Drawings: the genesis and nature of graphic representation. Madrid: Fibulas Publishers.

Worthington, M. and van Oers, B. Children’s social literacy practices and the emergence of graphic symbols in pretence and imagination. Forthcoming.

Taxonomy: Making meaning in social pretend play and imagination.

• Exploring symbols

Gallery 7: The emergence of graphic symbols and texts in pretend play