Handbook of psychology volume 7 educational psychology

Learning and Teaching in Early Childhood Education: Art, Literacy, Music, and Play

287

LEARNING AND TEACHING IN EARLY

CHILDHOOD EDUCATION: ART, LITERACY,

MUSIC, AND PLAY

Many textbooks on early childhood education are organized

by curriculum subject areas with discrete how-to chapters on

teaching literacy, music, art, science, social studies, move-

ment, and mathematics to young children. The lives and abil-

ities of young children are not so easily compartmentalized.

For this reason we take a different tack when considering

what children learn and how children learn in their early

childhood years. We consider the ways in which children

comprehend and represent their own lived realities across

subject areas and domains of development. We open this dis-

cussion with an exploration of the nature and significance of

art in early childhood education and artistic development in

children. This discussion of the representational and semiotic

functions of children’s art is followed by a consideration of

children’s representations of thoughts, scripts, and inner real-

ities in their spontaneous play. We then turn to children’s

early encounters with the world of literacy in which the writ-

ten word is seen as yet another powerful representation of

both thought and language. The section concludes with an

exploration of the significance of music, yet one additional

form of representation and meaning in the child’s world that

develops throughout the early childhood years

Art and Aesthetics in Early Childhood Education 

The artistic production of young children has been a source

of delight and enjoyment for many parents and early child-

hood educators. It is difficult to resist the simplicity of early

forms that depict with enthusiasm and energy the worlds of

childhood. It is hard not to be seduced by the directness and

expressive quality of images that in their apparent inaccura-

cies, approximations, and technical deficiencies capture the

element of youthful innocence that is but a memory in the

adult universe. The aesthetic appeal of young children’s pic-

torial imagery seems to be closely bound to the emotional re-

sponse that they evoke that allows for a nostalgic journey

back to one’s early years. Fineberg (1997) highlighted the

significance of these sentiments in Picasso’s fascination with

the “visual inventiveness of children” by pointing to its con-

nection with the artist’s “own extraordinary access to the

memories and urges of childhood that most of us have buried

beyond the reach of our adult consciousness” (p. 137). 

The value of early childhood as a period of uncontami-

nated purity where one has the benefit of perceiving

the world through what Vasily Kandinsky (1912) called

“unaccustomed eyes” and thus has the ability to attend to

the “pure inner tone” of the objects in the world has been

strongly reflected in the work of many artists of the modern

area and has created a powerful legacy. Jean Dubuffet, who

“turned in the 1940s to children’s drawings as a means of cut-

ting to the truth of the ordinary experience” (Franciscono,

1998, p. 116); Joan Miro, whose work associated with the

phenomenon of primitivism in French art of the 1920s and

1930s; and Paul Klee are among the icons of modernism who

elevated children’s art to an unprecedented height. Consider

Picasso’s famous remark made to Sir Herbert Read in 1956:

“It took me years to learn to draw like . . . children.” This one

sentence captures the respect and admiration for young chil-

dren’s artistic production shared by the most influential

artists of the modern era (quoted by Fineberg, 1997, p. 133). 

The sentiment expressed by Klee (1957) that “the more

helpless they [children] are, the more instructive their exam-

ples and already at an early stage one has to save them from

corruption” (translation by Hofmann, 1998, p. 13) echoes in

the works of one of the most influential Western art educators

of the twentieth century, Victor Lowenfeld. In his most ac-

claimed work Creative and Mental Growth, Lowenfeld and

Brittain (1964) argued that if “children developed without

any interference from the outside world no special stimula-

tion for their creative work would be necessary. Every child

would use his deeply rooted creative impulse without inhibi-

tion” (p. 20). Needless to say, these assertions have never

been empirically tested; nor have any scientific grounds been

provided to offer them validity. Furthermore, it is impossible

to conceive of circumstances in which children would grow

up in environments devoid of visual manifestations of

culture.

Yet, contemporary early childhood art education has been

greatly affected by what had earlier been referred to as “a

myth of natural unfolding” (Kindler, 1996). This is the notion

that artistic abilities are contained within the child at birth

and that a nonintrusive social environment is what is needed

to bring them to the surface. This sentiment often echoes in

early childhood texts and is well exemplified by Morgan

(1988), who stated that we should consider “children’s sym-

bolic activity to be sacrosanct in early years . . . and therefore

teacher intervention is inappropriate” (p. 37). The noninter-

vention approach relies on the assumption that children are

happy explorers who have an innate ability to satisfy their

creative desires.

Art educators and researchers in day care, preschool, and

primary classrooms have frequently witnessed children’s

frustrating struggles with producing art rather than the happy

explorations of young children trying to negotiate solutions

to pictorial problems. Regretfully, many children emerge

from these struggles with a loss of confidence that eventually

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Early Childhood Education

leads to the abandonment of pictorial efforts. A question can

then be asked about the merits of theoretical frameworks and

pedagogical approaches that sacrifice on the altar of “natural

development” opportunities of young children to grow into

individuals who can use with confidence and competence

pictorial means for expression and communication through-

out their lives. This question is particularly valid in the light

of alternative theories that stipulate that development in pic-

torial representation is in fact a process of learning from cul-

tural models and that these models are absolutely essential in

artistic development (Wilson & Wilson, 1977, 1981). Wilson

and Wilson’s research clearly contradicts the idea that “cre-

ative expression comes from within the child” (Edwards,

1990, p. 66) or that “talent doesn’t need any experience of

life” (Klee, quoted by Franciscono, 1998, p. 98). Instead, this

work points to the significance of socialization and cultural

exposure in the development of pictorial vocabulary that can

be used for expressive purposes. 

The very concept of artistic development and some long-

standing models developed to describe it (e.g., Gaitskell,

Hurwitz, & Day, 1982; Lowenfeld & Brittain, 1964; Luquet,

1977) have in fact become a subject of criticism in recent

years. Four particular issues have been identified in this col-

lective body of criticism. First, questions have been raised

about the appropriateness of unilinear conceptions of devel-

opment in explaining a wide range of pictorial imagery

produced by children, adolescents, and adults. Second, a dis-

parity has been noted between the breadth of the world of art

and the narrowness of the focus on visual realism that has

served as the endpoint in these developmental models. Third,

cultural biases that mark these models have been identified

theoretically and empirically. Fourth, insufficient recognition

has been paid to the role of other modalities of expression in

some forms of pictorial representation (e.g., Duncum, 1986;

Golomb, 1994; Kindler & Darras, 1997b, 1998; Korzenik,

1995; Wolf, 1994; Wolf & Perry, 1998). Critics of the tradi-

tional stage models of development argued that alternative

explanations are necessary to account for the range of pictor-

ial systems that children begin to develop early in life and to

engage in research relating to the reasons for selecting spe-

cific pictorial solutions. It has been pointed out that even very

young children have at their disposal more than one pictorial

system and that they choose among them as a function of

their representational intentions and purposes (Bremmer &

Moore, 1984). The notion of the significance of purpose—or

teleology—of pictorial behavior in the discourse about devel-

opment of graphic abilities has been at the center of a map-

like model of development that has emerged as an alternative

to the traditional stage models (Darras & Kindler, 1996;

Kindler & Darras, 1997a, 1997b, 1998).

This model regards emergence and development of

pictorial imagery as a semiotic process occurring in an inter-

active social environment that leads to pictorial behaviors

that may engage single or multiple modalities of expression.

This framework acknowledges psychobiological factors that

found development of pictorial activity while emphasizing

the role of culture in validating or deselecting specific pictor-

ial systems. It constitutes an attempt to decolonize discourse

about artistic development by pointing to the usefulness and

value of pictorial repertoires that have remained outside of

the acclaim of the Western art world and yet play a significant

role in children’s lives (Kindler, 1999). In addition to high-

lighting the dimension of pictorial choices and their relation-

ship to specific purposes of pictorial behavior, the model

proposed by Darras and Kindler recognizes frequent inter-

play of the gestural, vocal-verbal, and graphic actions in the

emergence and development of pictorial systems. This is

consistent with Parsons’s (1998) notion about the nature of

cognition in the arts. Parsons argues that the prevailing sys-

tems approach to cognition identifies the different arts as

each being a different symbol system and “requires thought

to stay within the boundaries of a single medium it is dealing

with on the assumption that, if it moves from one system to

another, it looses its coherence” (p. 106). He expresses con-

cern that such understanding of cognition in the arts “trans-

forms a dimension of difference into a principle of

separation” (p. 106). The repertoire model of development in

pictorial imagery moves beyond this principle and accommo-

dates cognitive processes that result in pictorial systems con-

tained within a graphic medium as well as those that cross

traditional boundaries of music, drama, and visual arts. This

broader conception of development is also more accommo-

dating of cultural factors that define artistic growth than some

of the earlier proposed models. The issue of a cultural bias in

these earlier theories has vividly surfaced in recent studies

that revisited the long-standing notion of the U-shaped curve

of artistic development (Davis, 1991, 1997a, 1997b; Gardner,

1980; Gardner & Winner, 1982). The proponents of the U-

shaped model argued that while young children exhibit very

high levels of creativity in their pictorial work, older children

and adolescents suffer from a serious decline in their artistic

abilities, which are regained in adulthood only by artistically

gifted individuals. The empirical data that confirmed the

U-shaped developmental pattern were collected in North

America and relied on aesthetic assessments of artistic merit

executed by North American and other Western judges.

When this study was recently replicated in settings

involving Chinese populations, the U-shaped pattern failed

to be confirmed (Kindler, 2001; Pariser & van den Berg,

1997). In none of these recent studies was young children’s

Learning and Teaching in Early Childhood Education: Art, Literacy, Music, and Play

289

work considered to be artistically superior to the work of their

older peers or nonartistic adults. This suggests that the cultural

criteria of artistic merit indeed played a powerful role in defin-

ing the very concept of artistic development in research that

led to the universality claims of the U-shaped developmental

progression. It is important to note that the repertoire model of

development does not disprove the U-shape model. In pictor-

ial repertoires that emphasize modernist values, this predic-

tion quite possibly continues to hold true. However, the

repertoire model provides also for alternative developmental

trajectories in other areas of pictorial pursuits, where technical

mastery and preciseness of line, for example, may be of more

interest and significance than the image’s overall expressive

quality. 

The revised understanding of development in pictorial

representation presents an exciting challenge to the field of

early childhood art education. It defines a teacher’s role in

much more complex terms and places more responsibility

on his or her shoulders for ensuring that children’s develop-

ment in this domain does not become unduly constrained by

a narrow set of cultural biases and preferences. Valuing and

encouraging what we see as children’s spontaneous self-

directed explorations need to remain an important considera-

tion in structuring learning environments of young children.

However, in order to solve pictorial problems, children also

require active assistance in (a) pursuing their own intuitive

interests in the visual culture that surrounds them, (b) helping

them achieve success in meeting their own pictorial expec-

tations, and (c) exploring their emerging metacognitive

abilities in relation to their pictorial production and strategies

that can enhance this production. It draws on the use of peer-

as well as adult-generated examples and readiness to discuss

ways in which different systems of pictorial representation

can be further mastered and extended to suit children’s spe-

cific needs and ambitions. 

While advocating a much greater sensitivity to and use of

cultural models in early childhood education, it is important

to clarify that the intention is not to train young children into

able performers within a particular system of representation.

The answer to early childhood art education will never be

presenting children with coloring books or insisting that they

copy a particular pictorial schema as the way to learn how to

draw. However, a sensitive introduction of activities that help

children understand the nature, value, and place of iconic rep-

resentation and introduce them to a wider range of pictorial

systems that function within their culture, supported by con-

versations and modeling of how different effects can be

achieved, will provide children with freedom to choose

whatever systems may best serve their purposes and needs in

different times in their lives.

It is important to note that especially in the early child-

hood years children’s pictorial intentions may have little to

do with creating a picture meeting the modernist standards of

“child art.” Their graphic activity is often just one component

of a semiotic process in which sounds, gestures, and words

carry a significant portion of meaning. In this context, a

teacher’s ability to accept these images as active happenings

rather than as objects to be posted on day care or primary

classroom walls may help children understand the value of

this unique multimodal system of representation and see it as

an alternative to other pictorial efforts where, in conformity

with the deep-rooted tradition of Western art, images are sup-

posed to stand on their own. Similarly, understanding that

telling of a dynamic story may require a child to use different

pictorial devices than in the case of a descriptive effort, a

greater range of imagery can become socially encouraged

and validated (Kindler, 1999). Activities that combine musi-

cal, dramatic, and visual art dimensions can further help

children grow in pictorial repertoires that rely on multiple

modalities of expression and that are often a natural choice of

young children who spontaneously combine the gestural, the

vocal, and the visual in their everyday play.

The importance of teachers’ assistance in a child’s growing

understanding of the technical possibilities and limitations of

specific artistic media can perhaps be best demonstrated by

looking at young children’s clay productions. Children as

young as 3 years of age who perform in nonintrusive self-

exploration environments tend to be much more limited in

subject matter, scale, detail, and stylistic diversity in their clay

productions than are those who benefit from appropriate in-

struction (Kindler, 1997). But perhaps most important, sensi-

tive teaching that relies on constructivist approaches and

actively guides children toward important discoveries that

support their pictorial efforts translates into a sense of accom-

plishment and pride that sustains children’s interest in creative

endeavors and encourages them to continue to use and further

master this medium of representation. These recommended

forms of adult intervention and teaching can be easily inte-

grated into the play format, and skillful and sensitive teach-

ers can make a tremendous difference in children’s artistic

growth without compromising the child-centered emphasis

and the relaxed and playful atmosphere in their early child-

hood classrooms. 

What is needed, however, is a paradigm shift from under-

standing the concept of developmentally appropriate art edu-

cation in terms of curricula targeting children’s actual levels

of attainment to that of creating environments that allow chil-

dren to perform within their “zones of proximal development”

(Vygotsky, 1978). This shift can take place only if we free our-

selves from the cultural baggage of romanticized notions of

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Early Childhood Education

child art and accept that while it certainly can appeal to our

aesthetic sensitivities and emotions, there are other territories

of pictorial worlds that children should be free to explore, en-

couraged to learn about, and provided with assistance to mas-

ter. Our love of children’s natural creative efforts should not

become detrimental to their artistic growth in the broadest

sense of the term.

This revised conception of human development in the area

of the pictorial extends the discourse to a new territory inclu-

sive of a wide range of manifestations of visual culture. It still

accounts for repertoires that conform to the modernist expec-

tations or give prominence to visual realism, but it also em-

braces pictorial worlds that rely on different rules, salient

attributes, and criteria of excellence. In pluralistic, diversified

societies it is especially important to plan early childhood ed-

ucation in ways that do not define artistic growth in hege-

monic terms laden by a strong cultural bias. Recent research

on artistic development has provided a platform for accom-

modating this diversity not by proposing a tight universal de-

velopmental sequence, but rather by suggesting a range of

pictorial repertoires along which children’s growth in art can

be witnessed and encouraged. The work needs to continue

with mapping of the different repertoires and exploration of

them in regard to the nature and modes of acquisition of these

pictorial systems. Some of them may rely on self-directed

discovery; others may require guidance and teaching starting

early on in one’s life. Because the concept of art is constantly

broadening and multicultural awareness is leading to a more

inclusive dialogue about aesthetic merit and value of differ-

ent kinds of pictorial imagery, the need to explore diverse av-

enues of growth and pedagogies that will support it along

these multiple dimensions will continue to be an important

area of concern and research for the years to come.

Literacy in Early Childhood Education

From Reading Readiness to Emergent Literacy

There were considerable changes in our understanding of

early literacy development in the last decades of the twentieth

century. Prior to the late 1970s, a reading readiness paradigm

dominated thinking about early literacy development. Cen-

tral to the concept of reading readiness was the notion that

children need to acquire certain prerequisite perceptual and

motor skills and to attain a certain mental age before they

could begin learning to read (Teale & Sulzby, 1986). Also im-

plicit in reading readiness was the notion that children could

not write (i.e., compose) until they had learned to read.

However, in the 1960s researchers began to conduct

research on literacy development in children prior to their

introduction to formal literacy instruction in school (i.e.,

Clark, 1976; Durkin, 1966). This groundbreaking body of re-

search revealed that for many children literacy development

begins long before their formal schooling and that, indeed,

some children entered school as competent and independent

readers. This early work precipitated a flurry of research in a

number of aspects of literacy. Clay (1979) and Holdaway

(1979) showed that young children’s reading behaviors devel-

oped along a continuum from initial, rough approximations of

reenacting texts to accurate decoding of print. Research on

emergent literacy included work on children’s writing as well

their reading. For example, Bissex (1980), Chomsky (1977),

and Read (1975) investigated young children’s writing devel-

opment and were able to show that children’s early attempts at

spelling were not random but were quite systematic and

demonstrated a sophisticated and developmental understand-

ing of phoneme-grapheme relationships. Working from within

a Piagetian tradition, Ferreiro and Teberosky (1982) demon-

strated that young children formed hypotheses about repre-

senting speech through writing that they modified as they

refined their knowledge. From this collective body of work

with young children sprung the theory of emergent literacy

(Clay, 1966). Sulzby and Teale (1991) defined emergent liter-

acy thus:

[A]n emergent literacy perspective ascribes to the child the role

of constructor of his or her own literacy. Unlike previous work,

the central issues now being addressed are the nature of the

child’s contributions (i.e., individual construction), the role of

the social environment in the process (i.e., social construction),

and the interface between the two. (p. 729)

The research in emergent literacy had a profound impact on

our understanding of both how literacy is learned and how it

could be taught. For example, many of the tenets of whole lan-

guage, a movement that flourished in the 1980s and 1990s,

could be traced to this work. As this body of research on emer-

gent literacy grew, so did the number of questions in four spe-

cific areas: the generalizability of the research, the presumed

similarity between oral language learning and the develop-

ment of literacy, the impact of culture on literacy develop-

ment, and the importance of storybook reading.

Questions about the generalizability were focused on both

the methodologies that were used as well as on the target

populations under study. As Adams (1990) pointed out, much

of the research in emergent literacy has been limited to “case

studies, chronologies and descriptions” (p. 336). Heath

and Thomas (1984) pointed to the fact that in many of these

studies the children on whom the research was conducted were

the children of “parent-academics” (Heath & Thomas, 1984,

p. 51) with their own children.