Color as a Semiotic Resource in Early Sign-Making

This parent-research article juxtaposes two theoretical frameworks in support of an analysis of a young child's uses of color in her sign-making; that is, in her efforts at writing and drawing. Perspectives from both social semiotics and the idea of literacy learning as social practice frame the examination and interpretation of the early sign-making of the child, who speaks both English and Japanese. The data sources include observations, reflective notes, transcribed audio recordings, and writing and drawing artifacts collected in the home when the child was between the ages of 3 and 7 years. This article reports how color served the child as an immediate resource for classifying, discriminating, and associating between the attributes of different objects and concepts in her written and pictorial representations. Color enabled her to identify and disambiguate objects and ideas within the signs that she produced. These findings call attention to the complexities of how children become literate, particularly the ways in which they may take active roles in that process, making decisions about the modes and tools they will use to represent ideas and concepts in their sign-making. The article concludes with a discussion of implications regarding approaches to children's writing and drawing in contemporary early childhood classrooms.