Narrative in young children’s digital art-making

Digital technologies have material and social properties that have the potential to create new opportunities for children’s expressive arts practices. The presence and development of oral narratives in young children’s visual art-making on paper has been noted in previous research, but little is known about the narratives children create when they engage in digital art-making. How do young children construct narratives during digital art-making? How do the features of these narratives relate to the social and material properties of the digital resources they are using? How can looking at these narratives inform and enrich our understanding of children’s art-making in general? Drawing on a social semiotic perspective, these questions are explored through an in-depth analysis of narrative in three examples of 4-5 year olds’ digital art-making. On the basis of the analysis, features of oral narrative in young children’s digital art-making are suggested and these are linked to potentially influential properties of the digital resources. Being aware of these features and properties offers a starting point for thinking about what digital resources can offer in the context of young children’s art-making. The findings also prompt us to be aware of the diverse potentials that exist in children’s art-making practices regardless of the resources being used.

This is an author manuscript version of : Mona Sakr, Vince Connelly, Mary Wild, Narrative in young children's digital art-making , Journal of Early Childhood Literacy
(Vol 16, Issue 3), pp. 289-310. Copyright © The Author(s) 2015. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications.