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Documentation and observation is a core activity undertaken by early childhood educators. It is just one part of a bigger picture, in which it focuses on a child’s typical behavior in different situations over given period of time. Owocki and Goodman (2002) assert that it is impossible to measure the growth of a child if the assessment focuses on outcomes alone. Mostly, the outcomes are measured in averages which make it easier to make inaccurate conclusions. However, all these inefficiencies can be avoided through documentation of children’s development.
Observations and documentation of children’s development enables childhood educators to have a wider view of children’s development and learning, experiences, and enables coordination and planning that will be of importance to the child. It is a tool that makes learning among children visible and helps early childhood educators to have a general view into children’s thinking throughout everyday exposures (Talay-ongan & Ap, 2005).
Assessment plays a major role in the design, delivery and evaluation of childhood development. Some of the assessments testing methods used are: authentic, natural, and contextualized assessment. Authentic assessment is a type of hands on assessment in which children use their understanding of the subject to give solutions for real world problems.
Authentic assessment is important to special education learners as it allows them to demonstrate their knowledge in a wide range of ways. It enables children to construct, integrate and apply their knowledge and think creatively. However, children with special needs often require specialized treatment as they face numerous problems when constructing and expressing their knowledge.
There are a wide range of materials in which childhood educators can use to document children’s development. Some of the materials that I am familiar with are post-it notes used for noting down observations from children, clipboards for capturing children’s thoughts during trips, folders for collecting children’s work. My comfort level of using these materials is at 99% as most of them are not complex.
However, there are some materials that I need to learn on how to use them in documenting children’s development. They include digital and video cameras for taking photos and videos, tape recorders for collecting children’s conversations and microphones that can be used with tape recorders to collect student conversations. Having skills on how to use these materials is essential for the success of documenting children’s development.
The importance of effective documentation of children’s development is a critical skill that every early childhood educator should possess (Talay-ongan & Ap, 2005). Educators can acquire help to document effectively from attending certification classes. However, this can also be achieved from observing what other early childhood educators are doing and reading user manuals in cases where equipments are used.
There are many strategies of documentation that can be applied in children’s development: daily schedule strategy, primary strategy, and preprimary strategy. Daily schedule strategy is a strategy for documenting a children’s development on a daily basis, primary and preprimary strategies are strategies whereby children’s development is documented on a weekly basis rather than on a daily or hourly basis. In my view, I consider daily schedule strategy to be more effective and of more value as it enables early childhood educator to document day to day developments of a given child. This makes it easier to have a clear and accurate understanding of the children’s development and learning in a daily basis rather than a weekly basis.
References
Owocki, G., & Goodman, Y. M. (2002). Kidwatching: Documenting children's literacy development. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books.
Talay-ongan, A., & Ap, E. A. (2005). Child development and teaching young children. Southbank, Australia: Cengage Learning Australia.
