Progressive Work with Drawing in Groups of Preschool Children in Mexico and Colombia

It is well known that pre-school age is the period of significant importance for psychological
development and for preparation of children for learning at school. The process of learning and
achievements at school depend on the types of activities selected at pre-school level. Unfortunately, it
is often to find out that introduction of writing and reading is among the most common activities in preschool
institutions all over the world. The goal of our article is to share a formative experience of
drawing as suitable activity for children development at preschool age. Mexican and Colombian
preschool children were included in the study aged between 5 and 6 years. All children belonged to
suburban area of the cities state of Tlaxcala (Mexico) and Bogota (Colombia) and assisted to preschool
official level without any kind of previous experience in drawing. The original program for
gradual formation of drawing by stages was applied for 8 months daily for 1 hour. The program is
based on the conception of the zone of proximal development, introduced by Vigotsky for
developmental psychology. The program included different stages with multiple activities directed to
analyses of concrete objects and toys and its essential features, denomination, classification,
differentiation, comparison of objects, analyses of basic shapes and spatial organization of details. All
activities within the program were collective and guided by a teacher, previously trained for this
purpose. After that graphic representation of shapes were used with the help of constant external
orientation. All children were tested before and after application of the program. Specific tasks were
selected from Brief Neuropsychological Assessment [29] for assessment of children. Among the tasks
were included: copy of objects with elements of spatial orientation, free drawing, production of
drawings by categorical instructions. After program application children from experimental group
showed qualitative positive achievements in graphic representations of objects, spatial orientation,
number of drawings and of essential features of represented objects. We conclude that drawing is
extremely useful activity for psychological development of children and the level of preparation for
school learning, especially for writing process. Drawing activity had positive effect for spatial functions
and images of objects in visual modality. We suggest that our program might be used in pre-school
official institutions with in order to guarantee required level psychological formation of pre-school age.
The program might be used even in groups of children in conditions of poor leaving conditions and
social deprivation.