Michelle Ong October 2, 2011 CHD 118 Observation and Work Sampling

The student I chose to do an observation and work sample is a 3-year, 7 month old female. Her name is Sakina. She was in my classroom last year and has returned to me in the older classroom since transition and separation was difficult for her at the beginning of last year. At the end of last year she began to have separation anxiety and did not want to participate in many activities. This year, she continues to experience the separation anxiety. Once engaged in activities, she is fine. Getting her into the classroom takes time. She uses words to express her desire to not come to school by saying I dont want to go. When it is time to leave, she is crying because she sees man y of the parents outside the door. She understands what is asked of her and generally complies to all 1-part and most 23 step instructions. Hindi is her native language and English is her second. Her mom is reinforcing English at home and continues to use Hindi so that her daughter does not lose the ability to communicate with family. Her mom provides her with books written in both English and Hindi. Mom reads to her almost daily. Sakina is doing very well learning English and is using English 100 percent of the time in the classroom. I chose Sakina because I knew from the previous year that she liked to draw and this was one of the activities that we presented and she rushed to do when she was upset. I have two samples of her writing/drawing that shows her developmental progress in both writing and literacy. The first drawing is from the first week of school. We were getting to know each other and the students were offered various materials and activities to create themselves. In art they were invited to create a self-portrait. Before they began, we discussed that a self-portrait was a picture of them. They would draw what they think they looked like. During the activity we offered prompts and reminders such as remember your body parts or what type of line or shape could you use for the head. I asked Sakina what are you drawing? This was to establish if she understood the activity that was presented. She said Sakina, this is my head while she pointed to a round circle on the pa ge. When Sakina stopped, I reminded her that we had a mirror that she could look at herself so she can see what else she wanted to add to the picture. After looking at herself, she returned to the paper and produced a round body and lines from the body. She labeled them as I asked what they were. She began adding color. She identified red for lipstick. I asked her who wears lipstick? and she said mommy wears liptick. She said she I am done. I asked her to tell me about her drawing. She said that is me, this is grass, grass is green, this is the letter A. Here is the picture she drew:

The second picture is from our week discovering about buildings and structures. We re-enacted The Three Pigs and focused on the way the houses were built. Our writing center was open (as it always is) and the students had an opportunity to write about their home or write or draw about The Three Pigs. This time Sakina was given markers. After she finished I asked her about her story. She said this is a heart while pointing to the green (almost) heart-like shape. I asked her what else did you draw? She said we are building a house and this is the house top. She pointed to the pink line that meets to a point at the top. She also pointed to and said this is p. This is the story and drawing she created:

For my analysis I used the Virginia Developmental Milestones of Early Childhood and our Textbook for reference. Sakinas drawings and communication about the drawings and writing indicates that she is within range of development for writing and literacy. I was able to determine fine motor, communication, language and literacy development. The first area I wanted to determine is her fine motor ability. This is an important area since the ability to hold a pencil is a major skill for writing. On the next page, you will see a picture I took of her drawing. She is holding the marker with a tripod grasp. While she is able to hold the marker and a pencil with this grasp, creating marks is easier with the marker rather than a colored pencil. This would indicate that she needs some fine motor muscle development to get her to have a firmer and more controlled grip. I provided prompts to press harder if she wanted darker marks while she used colored pencils that were lighter in color. I was also able to assess her communication skills and found evidence of her being in range of where the milestones indicate she should be. Receptively, she understood what was asked of her. She wrote and drew based on the theme or discovery of that week. Expressively, she used prior vocabulary knowledge to identify objects that werent necessarily being talked about at the time. She verbalized that grass is green and that mom wears lipstick. She spoke in extended sentences to describe what she was drawing. Looking at her drawing as a whole she displayed a wide range of writing stages. Based on the observation class I took last spring, Sakina used named scribbles, shape designs, design radials, and some human forms. Our class handouts and references support these findings as well. She is using purposeful lines to create straight legs and a round head. Shorter lines represent the eyes. While the heart is not pointed or the p is backwards, these are signs of her understanding of shapes and drawings vs. words and

letters. According the the Virginia Milestones of Early Childhood Development, these are all evidence of skills that would be seen by a 3-4 year old.

Here is Sakina drawing her 2nd picture. She is using a tripod grasp on the pen:

For Sakina, drawing and writing are important to her and this is an activity that helps her get through her separation. For the entire class, the writing center is always open. For Sakina, I make sure she knows it is there and even encourage her to start there since she does continue to come in upset on occasion. This means she might be the first one there. It really is the one activity that helps her to selfregulate and enjoy her day. I found the pencils harder for her to control the pressure of the marks. The markers were easier for those marks to show up on the paper. I will continue to provide Sakina activities that will strengthen the fine motor muscles to be able to apply the pressure necessary for all media. Those activities might include playdough and use of tweezers to pick up small items and transfer them from one container to another. Sakina needs minimal prompting for creative expression. She draws freely and willingly. She needs various verbal cues and open ended questions to get her to describe her work. As I have learned through various speech resources and numurous classes on development, this is typical and normal for this age. We will continue to encourage her to expand her descriptions. We will continue to provide center areas such as the dramatic play area where she can also use verbal skills to express herself and share stories. Snack time is also another area where we can encourage and help her to expand on her expressive communication. We will build on current skills to expand her drawings. As she goes into the older classroom, I have no doubt she will be moving from drawing as her means to write to writing stories with illustrations.