Beyond the word, within the sign: inquiry into pre-school children’s hand-made pictures about schooling

This article reports reflections on a study addressing the role of a handmade picture in understanding pre-school children’s ideas about their future school context. How is it possible to handle communication by pictures dealt with in the framework of a general theory of signs to signify inquiry? The underlying aim of the study and related report are to deepen educational insights into drawing as communication, co-operation and discovery with meaning. This purpose will contribute to adeeper understanding of the role of picture breakdown and a semiotic modal-specific qualifyingconversation within integrative pedagogy. Interviews, picture explication as well as the children’s and teachers’ commentsare my empirical resources.The result features the children’s style and orientation to sign-mindedness, the pictures’ composition, and children’s discovery of the objectwith meaning and at the end a considered "figure of thought" from reconstruction the sign with a semio-cognitive potential.