Understanding Creativity in Early Childhood
Meaning-Making and Children's Drawing
- Susan Wright - Professor and Chair of Arts Education in the Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Early Childhood Education
Creativity in early childhood is an area of fascination for all those working with young children, and this book investigates why children create, and what their creations mean. Chapters describe the processes and depict the outcomes of meaning-making, and of making room for children's voices through the open-ended activity of drawing.
Issues examined include:
- the increasingly popular use of multi-modal texts;
- links between creativity and literacy;
- the importance of art in early childhood;
- concrete examples of children's meaning-making, from the author's research.
We see how non-verbal and verbal communication is used to convey meaning, and how children's voices emerge; the important role imagination and narrative play in the early and continuing development of children is emphasized throughout the book.
Ideal for students of early childhood, and for anyone working with young children, this book is a revelatory guide to the mind of the young child.
'[This book] features concrete examples of children's meaning-making and is an attempt to...further understand children's development in greater depth and also to see how they view the world around them' -
Early Years Educator
'This will be an important 'seminal' text for many years in the early childhood field. Wright's work is based on her extensive research and work with young children, and her passion for this aspect of children's learning and development is evident throughout the text' - Dr Catherine Meehan, Senior Lecturer and Programme Director of BA (Hons) Early Childhood Studies, Canterbury Christ Church University
This is a really helpful book which encompasses a lot of the key topics covered in the module.
An easy and inspiring read. although the title is somewhat misleadiing as the book considers mark making and drawing rather than creativity as a whole.
A really useful mixture of theory and real-life examples. The writing is clear enough to be read for pleasure!
a well written book which will support students learning and enable them to understand how creativity in the early years can support childrens learning
This is great to help project students design their experiments with children and get a basic understanding of the relationship here with creativity.
This is offered as supplemental material as not all students choose to study creativity with children.
Some lovely chapters - really extends thinking
This is an interesting and well structured book.
This will be of benefit to particular students as they write their end of year assignments, depending on their focus however unfortunately the course aims to cover a wider range of topics in the year than are in the book. As such, it would not be appropriate to suggest this as an essential textbook for my students.
Great practical activities and advice for any one working with children
From the very beginning, e.g. the cover the concept of creativity seems a little closed. The child is using a pen to 'colour in' a pre-drawn outline of a figure!
Overall the book seems to be mis-titled and therefore misleading as it is almost wholly about children's drawing (p2. creativity through the "act of meaning making within the medium of drawing").
