This paper contributes to the symposium, "Research methods involving children's drawings in mathematical contexts" by exploring the "drawing-telling" approach to researching with young children. "Drawing-telling" is a methodological approach that encourages young children to represent their experiences and understandings through both drawings and accompanying narratives. The authors have used the drawing-telling approach to elicit young children's understandings about measurement within their first few weeks of starting primary school. This paper details the drawing-telling approach, and shares some insights and examples from the larger study of children's measurement knowledge at the start of school. [This paper is the first in a symposium of four papers. For the second paper, "Capturing the Mathematical Drawing Process Using a Digital Pen," see ED604538. For the third paper, "The Nature of Young Children's Attitudes towards Mathematics," see ED604539. For the fourth paper, "Coding Young Learners' Pictorial Responses to an Open-Ended Assessment Task," see ED604540.]