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

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Uses whole arm to make marks

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child with paper and a crayon or marker.

Elicitation Strategy

Give the child markers or crayons and paper on a small table, where the child can be stable and comfortably reach the paper. Let the child make marks independently.

Behavior Observed

The child spontaneously marks all over the paper (and maybe the table) using her whole arm to draw. Marks may be scribbles or lines. The child makes lines in all directions, with no plan.

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/.