CHILDREN'S SINGLE-LINE DRAWING SKILLS

Images that can be drawn with a single line can be classified by difficulty in several groups. The simplest one-line images are composed of a closed line, are axially symmetric, contain no intersections and can be drawn starting from any point. Another type of images are those with one or two loose ends. It is suitable to start drawing at these very ends. Somewhat more difficult are images composed of a closed line with intersections (these are suitable as starting points for drawing) and images formed of two parts linked by a path (they contain two distinctive intersections which can serve as starting points). The most difficult are images that consist of bordered planes.

An experiment aiming to discover which types of single-line images 4.5 to 5-years-old children are able to solve took place in several nursery schools in the Czech Republic. 7 tasks of increasing difficulty were created and children solved them using motion (walking on rope arranged on the ground in the shape of given image) or manipulation (creating their own images from a string or shoelace; laying a shoelace over image on paper and then going over it with a crayon). The experiment was carried out observing children solving their single tasks.

The experiment analysis revealed that 100 % of children from given sample circumvented by movement a symmetric image in the shape of ellipse made of rope on the floor and 60 % of children from given sample circumvented a picture with one intersection. All children from given sample went over an image made of a shoe lace in a single-line manner. 90 % of children from given sample created their own shoe lace image and 50 % of children from given sample drew a single-line image prepared on a sheet of paper. It became apparent that it is suitable with this type of exercise to start with movement and only later to focus on images on paper.