North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Health and Physical Development (HPD)

Subdomain: Motor Development

Goal: Children develop small muscle control and hand-eye coordination to manipulate objects and work with tools.

Skill Progression: Drawing

Age: 18-21 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 18-21 Months.

Produces writing lines differently than drawing lines

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child with paper and a crayon or marker.

Elicitation Strategy

Ask the child to draw you a picture, then ask him to write about it underneath the picture.

Behavior Observed

“Writing” lines are thinner and have more curved lines than drawing lines.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Give parents suggestions for expanding the child’s options for writing surfaces. Children will write on anything at this age, so give them space to draw. Use extra-large paper to give children room to make many marks.

 North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, 2015

©2015 by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.