Drawing and Painting : Children and Visual Representation

`This book is a welcome update of an informative text describing the process of children′s mark making as a visual, physical and interactive process urging us to consider how we as adults perceive and support young children′s mark making activities both at home and school. John Matthews demonstrates the cognitive function of this early mark making in relation to general individual development′ - Early Years

`A thought-provoking and informative book, this is essential reading for anyone involved in the education of young children′ - Times Educational Supplement - Teacher

`Drawing and Painting is a fascinating and delightful read for tutors, practitioners and students and is highly recommended an essential text for early years courses at level 3 and above′- Under Five

This book has been revised to reflect recent developments in early childhood education, in developmental psychology and in our understanding of children′s development in the arts. The author shows how this new model of children′s development in visual representation has important implications for education.

The author examines children′s development in visual expression and suggests how this development might be supported. The book takes issue with the inherited wisdom about children′s development in visual representation. The traditional approach describes children′s development in terms of supposed deficits in which children progress from `primitive′ earlier stages to `superior′ ones, until the `defects′ in their representational thinking are overcome and they arrive at an endpoint of `visual realism′. This approach is the pervasive influence on curricular planning, in arts education and in early years education.

The author explains recent different models of development in visual expression. Instead of measuring children′s efforts against an adult paradigm, the new models identify the modes of representation used by children as consequences of children′s own intentions, motivations and priorities.

The writing is accessible and assumes no specialist knowledge of psychological theory, art, its history or interpretation. This book is essential reading for early childhood educators, at nursery and pre-school level, for other professionals who work with very young children and parents, as well as students and tutors on early years courses.

This is a revised edition of Helping Children to Draw and Paint: Children and Visual Representation, originally published in 1994.