A Test That Makes A Difference: Simple Art Assessments

I've long-advocated that kindergartens be given a simple drawing assessment when registering for school. And once in awhile I get teachers to take me up on this. It's actually easy to read these. They provide an immediate visual insight as to where the child is age-wise in his/her development stage.

If a child is drawing like a three-year-old, he's clearly not ready for kindergarten curriculum. He'll be behind before he even begins. This child needs plenty of art practice before he's ready to form or recognize letters. Assessing the drawings would help the teacher group children appropriately and provide insight as to how to plan for maximum learning from day one.

I've done this in first and second grade classes, too. Teachers are expected to meet the learning needs of a wide variety of learners in their classrooms. We've found it helpful to lay the drawings side by side, or pin them up with clothespins. I group them by developmental age as the children's drawings indicate. We look at the class drawings in order from the "youngest" to those drawing at grade level, and beyond. It helps explain visually to the teacher why certain kids are falling behind or can't handle certain aspects of the curriculum. Then hopefully the best intervention will be put in place.

The groundbreaking work on deciphering children's developmental age based on their artwork was pioneered in the 1940s - 1950s. Viktor Lowenfeld's identification of the stages of cognitive development were quite remarkable. In his book "Creative and Mental Growth," he included charts and samples of children's artwork. His work has been expanded, and long-time art educators such as Betty Edwards have added their insights in how to read children's visual work.


I find all this fascinating -- and so easy to do. And cheap! A fortune of education dollars is forced to be spent on extensive, laborious testing. Educators can learn a lot from simple crayons and paper and letting kids draw. This test prep is easy and fun.

This great site compares Lowenfeld's and Edwards' description of each stage of cognitive, visual development. You can see for yourself:
http://www.learningdesign.com/Portfolio/DrawDev/kiddrawing.html