The focus of this article is the role of drawings in the journeys of young children towards literacy. The argument is that young children learn from home contexts a wide range of approaches towards literacy. At school their flexibility in using these approaches is reshaped into narrow versions of literacy based on learning to read, write and…

Children's drawings about reading and writing have unrealized potential for helping uncover the literacy narratives students bring to school and use to make sense of reading and writing. In this article, we highlight how one boy's drawing about literacy revealed his interpretation of his school's policy on violence as a topic of writing, which…

"Setting" A single primary school which serves a mixed socioeconomic area in the north of Scotland. "Method" Parents gave demographic details about their family and information about whether their children had been breastfed. Twenty- three children, aged 6, took part in three focus groups which were conducted by two…

This paper presents primitive states of mind in an adopted child, which had been engendered by traumatic experiences in infancy and early childhood. Vignettes from her therapy illustrate difficulties in learning, speech and interaction, which were inhibiting her relationships with her adopted family from developing. The development of…

Research findings confirm positive links between music education, scholastic achievement, and social adaptability, especially among at-risk and special needs children. However, few studies explain how this process occurs. This article presents a didactic approach, which suggests practical ways of enhancing general learning skills while teaching…

This author, a teacher of American Indian and Alaskan Native literature at an all-native school, contends that suppression of Indigenous literary texts is an aspect of colonization, and that reclamation of Indigenous American literature is a critical component of cultural sovereignty. In her classes, she emphasizes the hybrid nature of…

This practicum designed and implemented a program using art therapy to improve the social competency of elementary-aged children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional/defiant disorder. Students were in a special class for children with severe emotional disturbances. The children met once a week in art therapy sessions…

Meaningful drawing curriculum construction is an especially difficult challenge for art teachers of early adolescent students, given such students'"crisis of confidence" with art skills and the cultural diversity of present day classrooms. This document describes an analysis of six published drawing instruction programs employing three approaches…

Divided into two parts, this world directory features collections and archives of childrens' art. The first part of the volume provides information about the collections before October 1989. Entries are arranged in alphabetical order according to the French spelling of the various countries and include the following information for each entry:…

This collection of writings, photographs, and drawings is intended for new readers of English as a second language. The writings are produced by English literacy students or are excerpted from published works by immigrant and American authors and include personal narratives and essays on home countries, work, education, and language. An…

Two modes of assessment (an interview and a drawing task) were applied to investigate first, third, and fifth graders' understanding of their own feelings and their understanding of the feelings of others, specifically those of their parents. In the interview session, each subject was asked first a set of questions about happy feelings and then…

A videotape of one student, "Eric," age three years, engaged in dialogue with his teacher about a picture he has drawn, clearly demonstrates the rich language learning opportunities that language encounters on the topic of a student's art work provide for both the child and the teacher. In this encounter, Eric is able to convey affective…

Many elementary classroom science programs in North America have incorporated what is called design technology, design and technology, technology, technological problem-solving, and/or problem-solving through technology. Design technology involves designing and making products to meet some need, and is directly concerned with the individual's…

Presented is a manual for scoring the Bender Gestalt Test and the Human Figure Drawing Test for screening and diagnostic uses with emotionally disturbed, brain damaged, or perceptually handicapped 5- to 11-year-old children. Given are suggestions for administering and scoring the Bender test which examines distortion of shape, rotation,…

Two Groups of educable mentally retarded primary and secondary pupils were compared on measures of self-esteem and intelligence to determine whether scores on a self-drawing test and those on a self-perception test were related. A significant correlation was found for the secondary pupils only. (Author/JKS)