Learning to See the Whole Child

01/24/2005

Learning to See the Whole Child

"Of course children benefit from positive feedback. But praise and rewards are not the only methods of reinforcement. More emphasis should be placed on appreciation-reinforcement related explicitly and directly to the content of the child's interest and efforts." Lilian G. Katz in Parents Magazine, October 1990

Learning to See the Whole Child

In Beginnings Workshop in the November 1996 issue of Exchange Kay Strizel Renken, in her article "Observation: The Primary Tool in Assessment," makes this point regarding the value of observing children in classrooms:

"Observing young children requires the gathering of evidence of growth in a natural setting. An early childhood classroom is a familiar place where the child feels at ease in experimenting and exploring with blocks, various art media, writing, computers, puppets. This experimentation and exploration provides a rich storehouse of observable information for the teacher skilled in gleaning it from the play that surrounds the child. Observing in this setting looks at the whole child - not fragments or skills that are out of context. When a child is counting to see how many friends are at school today, there is authenticity; but when asked to count objects for a test, the reason is absent.

"One of the important benefits of doing observations is that teachers are viewing many components at the same time. Unlike standardized tests, which focus only on cognition, observations allow the teacher to see the whole child. The emotional, physical, social, and cultural dimensions of the child are equally important, especially with the younger child."

This article is the basis for one of four new Out of the Box Training Kits being released today on our web site. Also we have reorganized this Out of the Box section so that you can now search for kits by topic, by teacher skill level or by age of the children.

Check this out at:
http://mail.ccie.com/go/eed/0513

In addition, the Beginnings Workshop, "Observation." with four articles including Kay's, is available for purchase at:
http://mail.ccie.com/go/eed/0514

For more information about Exchange's magazine, books, and other products pertaining to ECE, go to www.ccie.com.