Sage Publications Understanding Creativity in Early Childhood: Meaning-Making and Children′s Drawing

Do you want to understand young children′s development in greater depth? Would you like to see how they view the world around them, and what they think the future might look like? 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. Review ′[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 About the Author Susan Kay Wright is the Head of the Early Childhood and Special Educational Needs division at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.