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Tracking Early Childhood Development Case Study

Tracking Early Childhood Development Case Study Brittany Boxler James Madison University: ELED 308

Tracking Early Childhood Development Case Study Introduction In the Education Program at James Madison University, students start their Education classes their junior year. There is one thing that students look forward to the most. That one thing is getting placed into their practicum class. The practicum class refers to the classroom,

we, as Education majors, will be interning in once a week for the course of the semester. When I found out where I was placed, I immediately contacted my teacher to introduce myself. In our development class we are required to choose a case study child. The purpose of having a case study child is to track the physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and language development of a child through the course of a semester to develop their skills in observation and interpretation of typical child development. In our Development class, we have learned about all five aspects of development as well as what researchers have concluded about each. As is true with all research, there is still more to be found out. What better way to find out more, than with a real life example. For my case study, my teacher immediately recommended a boy whom I will call, Bobby. She recommended him because as far as she can tell he is developing normally in most of the domains of development. Mrs. X also recommended him, because she knows a lot about his family life. She knew Bobbys parents would give permission to conduct this case study. Bobby was never really shy and pretty open with me through the course of the semester, which is another reason why Mrs. X recommended him to me. Methods Throughout the semester, I have conducted observations in various ways. I have chosen the observation techniques based on what is appropriate for the environment in which I have been placed. Every Tuesday, I arrive at the Elementary School by 7:50 am. This arrival time gives me fifteen minutes to prepare for the arrival of the first graders who I have worked with all

Tracking Early Childhood Development Case Study

semester. The children are welcomed by a colorful, exciting classroom and a greeting from Mrs. X and me. Mrs. X is open to me doing whatever I need to do to conduct observations, whether it is pulling Bobby aside or just sitting and taking notes. Ive also had the opportunity to conduct activities and lead reading groups which has helped me to connect to Bobby, as well as the rest of the students throughout the semester. Recess and free play in the classroom provided a good opportunity for me to observe Bobby in a natural setting. I am only there once a week, so my data is just based on what I have seen in the time I have been in the classroom. Some of the ways I have collected data are through class log lists, running records, narratives, and checklists. I have used many sources in interpreting my data. Some of the sources include the works of Piaget, Vygotsky, Erikson, Kohlberg, and other Early Childhood theorists. Throughout the course of the semester, I was also provided with insightful articles which provided us with more current research to increase our knowledge and understanding of the different domains of childhood development; physical, emotional, social, cognitive, and language development. Data and Interpretations Intro: Child and Family System Bobby was six years and four months when he first arrived in first grade. When I met him in January, he was six years and nine months. He first caught my attention with his upbeat mood, his ability to be on task, work cooperatively with others, and his high self-esteem. These characteristics and my conversations led me to believe his parents use the authoritative child rearing style. This style has been described as the most successful parenting style, because it involves high acceptance and involvement (Kuczynski & Lollis, 2002). In his family, Bobby has a mother and father who are still married, an older half brother, a half-sister who is nineteen, and a brother who is ten. Bobby told me that he only sees his half-brother and sister on special

Tracking Early Childhood Development Case Study

occasions, like Christmas. Even though Bobbys family is blended with two half siblings, it does not seem to negatively affect him in anyway. Bobby also has a set of grandparents that live in the area, but this past year his grandfather passed away. According to Mrs. X, Bobby was extremely close to his grandfather and has had a hard time with his passing. This brings up a really interesting aspect in Bobbys life, religion. Bobbys mom is Jewish and his father is Christian. This affects Bobbys life in that he celebrates both Hanukah and Christmas. He stated in one of his journals that he goes to Jewish school over the weekend. The fact that Bobby practices aspects from both a Christian and Jewish perspective affects his exosystem. Bronfenbrenner describes the exosystem as social systems that do not contain the child but do affect the childs experience in their surroundings (Wekerle & Wolfe, 2003). In Bobbys case the split in religion has seemed to make him very well rounded and knowledgeable about diversity and the differences among religions.

Bronfenbrenner also mentions the macrosystem in his Ecological Systems theory. This system is the outer layer of Bronfenbrenners theory and it consists of cultural values, laws,

Tracking Early Childhood Development Case Study customs, and resources (Waldfogel, 2001). When I asked him what his parents did for a living

he told me, My mom makes beer and my dad makes businesses. Mrs. X then told me that his mother works in marketing for Coors and she was not sure about his father, but said she thinks he may be some kind of consultant. Bobby told me about some of the vacations he has taken. He told me over Spring Break he goes to the Nick Hotel and over summer he visits his half brother and sister in Florida. Based on what I know about his parents careers and his vacations, I would say his family is middle-upper class. Since Bobbys parents make enough money to provide for all of Bobbys needs and beyond, this macrosystem affects the support they receive at inner levels of the environment (Berk, 2009). Bobby said he has moved, dozens of times. He used to live in Maryland and was born there. When he was four he moved to New Jersey, and recently moved to Virginia. He told me he has friends in both Virginia and New Jersey. This year is the first year he has been at this particular school. Moving changed Bobbys home, school, and neighborhood, therefore, it affected his microsystem (Bronfenbrenner, 1986). Since I came towards the end of the year, I could not see any negative effects resulting from his move. Overall he seems to be handling the adjustment really well. Physical and Motor Development Bobby is average height and weight for his age. He has brown hair and brown eyes. He has never been sick when I have been observing him, and Mrs. X told me he is hardly ever sick. Bobby packs his lunch most of the time, but sometimes he buys lunch. He told me one week even though he did not like the lunch choices for the week, he was going to buy lunches all week. He said, My mom is not here. She is at some work thingy, so Im taking it easy on my dad. Through talking with Bobby, I have reason to believe that he eats a healthy dinner and

Tracking Early Childhood Development Case Study

never has to go without a meal. One day he told me, I had the best dinner last night! My mom made my grandmas chicken. I call it special chicken. It still has the crust on it and everything. Bobbys nutritious diet and regular physical activity make him less at risk for obesity (Craig & Baucum, 2002). As far as physical activity goes, Bobby is very active from what I have observed. He told me that he loves to skateboard and he can ride his bike without training wheels. Riding his bike without training wheels is a developmental advancement for children his age (Malina & Bouchard, 1991). On Friday, April 13, I had the opportunity to observe Bobby in Physical Education class. They were playing a game called fish tank and a game called backyard. In fish tank the object of the game was to get the ball in the fish tank, which consisted of a mat connected to form a square. In backyard, the object of the game was to get all of the balls on the other side of the court. Bobby excelled at backyard and was able to throw the ball over handed from one side of the court to the other. At age seven, most boys can throw a ball about 34 feet (Pica, 2004). I would say that Bobby threw the ball about that distance if not more. Jumping is another skill, children master at Bobbys age. On February 14, I observed Bobby jump off of playground equipment that was about 5 feet off the ground. He landed on both of his feet showing his strength and coordination. According to research, at this age children are developing greater coordination of their bodies in space (Mayesky, 2002). Also on February 14, I observed Bobby crossing the monkey bars. He crossed the monkey bars alternating bars and right/left hands. When he would reach for a bar his body weight would be behind him. Then when he would get to the next bar his body weight would go in front of him. Crossing the monkey bars in this manner is an example of Bobby sequencing a series of movement skills which is a developmental characteristic of children his age (Mayesky, 2002). Crossing the

Tracking Early Childhood Development Case Study monkey bars is also an example of whole body movement and involves great upper body

strength (Berk, 2009). From my observations, it appears that Bobby is right on track in the area of gross motor development.

Bobby is right-handed and absolutely loves to draw. I even read in his journal that he likes to make up his own comic strips. How he grasps his drawing materials verses his pencil is quite different. When he is drawing, he really seems to take his time because drawing is something he is very passionate about. Therefore I noticed while Bobby is drawing, he uses a pincer grip. Sometimes when Bobby is doing his work from a class to-do list he uses a fist grip rather than a pincer grip. The times I have observed him doing this, he seemed as if he was rushing to get done with his work. Throughout the time period I observed Bobby, I saw him improve a great deal with taking his time on his work and therefore he started using pincer grip with a pencil more often. Also dealing with fine motor skills, Bobby has finger skateboards he enjoys playing with. Even though these are not ideal to have in class as it causes distractions, Bobby can do various tricks by placing his thumb on certain parts of the tiny skateboard, building his thumb muscles. As I previously stated, Bobby loves to draw. His drawings are so detailed. In one observation, Bobby made a pop-up card. He cut out people that were quite small showing his ability to use scissors accurately. At this age, childrens writing and drawing skills are more controlled and more precise (Craig & Bausum, 2002). Bobby seems to be ahead of all the

Tracking Early Childhood Development Case Study

children in his class in drawing. I have observed him on multiple occasions, help someone draw or write something. This observation goes against the research that shows girls are ahead of boys in this area of development (Haywood & Getchell, 2005). From observations, I think the reason Bobby is ahead of the other children, even girls, in drawing is because drawing is one of his favorite hobbies. One day I observed Bobby snapping his fingers. He snapped his fingers with just his left hand, but, like I previously stated, he is right-handed in writing. He experienced some difficulty with snapping his fingers. He did not always get the desired snapping noise. Between ages 6 and 8 children usually begin to snap their fingers (Berk, 2009).

Emotional and Social Development Bobby is a very confident child, but he also seems to have a sensitive side from my observations. When I asked Bobby to describe himself he went straight into abstract characteristics. He said, Well Im annoying. Sometimes Im the class clown and Im annoying. I can be funny sometimes. This observation was interesting to me, because at his age, research suggests children usually participate in social comparisons, where children compare themselves to other children in a concrete and abstract manner. In my observations, I have never heard Bobby compare himself to any of the other children. I also found it interesting that he did not describe himself in a concrete manner at all (Butler, 1998). He just told abstract characteristics about himself. Not only were the characteristics abstract, but some of them were negative. He

Tracking Early Childhood Development Case Study told me that he was annoying, but sometimes funny. This observation told me he thinks the children think he is annoying, which is negative, but it does not seem to bother him. Bobby emphasizes both positive and negative attributes about himself which goes along with the Milestones for six to ten year olds (Berk, 2009).

Two theorists named Thomas and Chess, developed the first influential model of temperament. The model looks at nine different temperament traits; sensitivity, intensity of reaction, adaptability, approach and withdrawal, persistence, rhythmicity, quality of mood, distractibility, and activity level. Thomas and Chess also present three different types of children; the easy child, the difficult child, and the slow-to-warm-up child (Thomas & Chess, 1977). From my observations I would say Bobby falls under the easy child category. Activity level focuses on how active children are when participating in an activity like watching television. Every Tuesday in my practicum class, the students watch a series called, Read between the Lions. This series is used to promote literary development (Tompkins, 2011). While watching this series, Bobby remains pretty still and is completely concentrated on the video. The video is thirty minutes long, and on most days Bobby sits still while watching it, which contributes to a low display of activity level. The next temperament trait that Thomas and

Tracking Early Childhood Development Case Study Chess present in their model is sensitivity. In this case, sensitivity is referred to how much stimulus is needed to evoke a response from a child. A strong example of this would be screaming when a child sees the sun. The low display of sensitivity would be blinking when a child sees sunlight. Through observations, Bobby represents the low display of sensitivity.

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Another temperament trait in the model is intensity of reaction. This refers to the energy level of a childs response. Bobby demonstrates the strong display when it comes to intensity of reaction. When he finds something funny, Bobby laughs. When he gets frustrated, he sometimes cries. The next temperament trait is adaptability. With the passing of his grandfather, Mrs. X has noticed that Bobby has had some trouble coping with it. On January, 17, 24, February, 7, and 14 I observed Bobby having a few crying fits. Two of the times, I observed him cry were because he could not find his reading notebook. The first time I observed this, I asked Mrs. X if this behavior was normal. She told me Bobby was having a hard time with the loss of his grandfather so he was a bit more emotional. The other two times I observed him cry were because he had to change his card. Throughout the semester, however this behavior has changed. When he cannot find something, he comes up to Mrs. X or me and asks us to help him. If Bobby has to change his card, he sits quietly at his desk with his head down instead of crying. With the passing of his grandfather, Bobby was slow to adapt back into the routine of school, but he soon was back to normal. The fifth temperament trait is approach and withdrawal. This refers to first response to new stimuli. In a strong display, it would not affect the child, and in a low display, it would make the child very uncomfortable. Though I cannot say for sure, based on my observations, I would say Bobbys display of approach and withdrawal is strong. When something new comes along in class, he usually just jumps right in. I have never noticed him being uncomfortable or hiding in new situations. The next temperament trait is persistence. This

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refers to the childs ability to continue at an activity until he or she is finished. In Bobbys class, he is given a to-do list most days. I have observed him working through his to-do list very persistently making him have a strong display of persistence. Quality of mood is another temperament trait. Bobby has been friendly on almost every occasion I have observed him in. However, there have been a few instances when I have witnessed some unfriendly behavior. When I witnessed the unfriendly behavior, it occurred at times when there was a competitive atmosphere. In physical education class on April 13, the teacher told the children that after each game no matter who won or lost, that everybody was supposed to be good sports. In the first game they played, Bobbys team won and him and all of his teammates went over to the opposing team and shook their hands. The next game the class played, Bobbys team lost. He immediately started arguing with the other children and telling the teacher that the other children were not being nice. After losing, Bobby did not shake the other teams hands. The final temperament level presented in Thomas and Chess model is distractibility. This trait measures a childs ability to stay focus or get sidetracked. Like stated above, in all the times I have observed Bobby, he has been able to stay focused in the classroom (Thomas & Chess, 1977). When Bobby is approached by an adult he can be shy at first. He is comfortable with Mrs. X and his Specials teachers. Unlike a lot of other children his age, he understands when an adult is joking around with him. Bobby recognizes that other children in the classroom are different from him and displays empathy towards others. On multiple occasions, I have observed Bobby intervene with children who were upset and ask them what was wrong. He seemed to truly empathize with the children who were upset. If he cannot seem to make the children feel better, he tells Mrs. X that they are upset. This empathetic behavior promotes Bobby to develop an altruistic behavior. It appears to me that Bobby has developed a sense of loyalty to his classroom

Tracking Early Childhood Development Case Study (Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad, 2006; Roberts & Strayer, 2003). When he sees someone upset, through my observations, it seems like he makes it his duty to try to make them feel better.

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Throughout the semester, I have observed Bobby participating in three types of play. These two types of play I have observed are solitary, associative, and cooperative play. I found it very interesting that a child as outgoing as Bobby would participate in solitary play. As the semester progressed I started observing closer. When other children would ask him to play, he would answer politely that he just wanted to play by himself. Every child needs to have some time to collect their own thoughts and feelings (Parten, 1932). On March 28, I observed Bobby and his friends making triangle people and then turning them into a triangle family. In this scenario, Bobby was participating in associative play (Parten, 1932). He showed his social knowledge when he said referring to his triangle person, He has a Mohawk. Oh yeah he has a Mohawk. This guy has stitches on his back. The tape is his stitches. This speech shows that Bobby has knowledge of Mohawks and stitches. He is also being very conversational by making sure all of his friends knew his exact thought process and how his imagination was working at the time. The final type of play Bobby participates in is cooperative play. When Bobby builds things from blocks with his friends there is a great degree of organization. They have to give each other roles as to who will build what part of the building (Parten, 1932). He generally plays with both boys and girls, where other children in the class usually just play with their own gender. If there are

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ever any conflicts, Mrs. X encourages children to work it out and through the children working it out there have been minimal conflicts.

An interesting observation I have made with Bobby is his interaction with two boys in his class that have Autism. For most children, this would be considered a challenging situation. Every Tuesday, I was there to observe, Bobby would hold one of the childrens hands. Every morning I was there he would greet both of the boys with autism. He also understands when the two boys want to be left alone or when they want to talk to him. This gives reason for me to believe that Bobby has developed perspective taking. Perspective taking refers to the ability to imagine what other people are thinking and feeling. These two boys are not able to communicate in the same way other children communicate, yet Bobby can communicate effectively with the boys every time I have observed him (Berk, 2009). Through observation, I feel as though Bobby is in Level 2 of theorist, Robert Selmans Stages of Perspective Taking. In this stage children can step into another persons shoes and view their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (Selman, 1976). This stage is common in children age 7 to 12, so Bobby appears to be ahead of the game here.

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Cognitive Development Cognition is not only how the mind processes, but also what the mind produces. Processing and producing of the brain, lead to a sense of knowing (Berk, 2009). Piaget and Vygotsky have the most acknowledged theories in the department of cognition. According to Piaget, Bobby should be in the preoperational stage of his constructivist approach to cognitive development. The most obvious change in the preoperational stage from the sensorimotor stage is the childs mental representation. This mental representation is seen in classrooms through make-believe play, drawings, and symbols (Piaget, 1952). I have observed Bobby relate to all of these three categories. When the children have good choice time, they almost always participate in make-believe play. On April 24, I observed Bobby playing with leggos and blocks with some of his classmates. One of his friends had his leggo and Bobby took it back and said, Hey thats my car! Hey guys look at my car I got. This is my new police car. Lets go! Woo hoo!. Bobby is using mental representation here by pretending that the leggo is a police car. In another example I observed Bobby and his classmates making a triangle family out of paper and markers. Each triangle they made was a different family member. Bobbys triangle was married to Lilas triangle. When Bobby started making his triangle say, Oh yeah Im Mr. grouchy. Oh yeah Im the dad and a rockstar. The band is called the grouches, Lila responded by saying,

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Im not married to you Im divorcing you. Bobby realized he was being a little too crazy for Lila and responded by saying, Okay I wont be that crazy. This example showed how Bobbys triangle represented a person. It also showed some of the benefits make believe play has on childrens cognitive development. They ended up playing and created a triangle family for ove r 30 minutes which showed how their attention was sustained. Make a family out of paper and markers shows how Bobby has a vivid imagination and is very creative. When Lila confronted him about being too crazy, he realized he needed to stop being so crazy. In this particular activity he learned to understand Lilas emotions and in turn controlled his behavior to make her happy. Sustained attention, memory, logical reasoning, language and literacy skills, imagination, creativity, understanding of ones emotions, and the ability to reflect on ones own thinking, taking control of ones behavior, and taking another persons perspective are all benefits of make believe play that allow children to develop cognitively (Bergen & Mauer, 2000; Berk, 2006; Elias & Berk, 2002). When it comes to drawing, Piaget separated it into three categories. The categories are scribbles, first representational form, and more realistic drawings (Winner, 1986). From observations, I would put Bobby in the realistic drawing category. It is stated in research that children aged five to six start to develop greater realism and they are able to create more complex drawings, involving humans and animals depicted accurately (Toomela, 2002). With Bobby, I see him drawing a lot. On April 27, he made me a pop-up card. He portrayed me at the front of the classroom with all of my body parts portrayed accurately, and he also drew himself sitting in a chair that popped up as well. This detailed drawing concept is found often in older elementary school children, where they use spatial arrangement in their drawings. In preparation for Earth Day, he drew a picture of the Earth that was very accurate and he drew it straight from his memory from book they have read together as a class. Spatial arrangement, improved

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planning, and pictures serving as symbols are all factors contributing to cognitive development in Piagets preoperational stage (Golomb, 2004). Going back to the triangle family, Bobby is constantly drawing or creating things that symbolize real life objects. For example, he drew lines on his triangle, symbolized the lines as stitches, and said, Im Bob. I fell off the Eiffel tower. In this observation, Bobby applied the symbol of stitches to a specific state of affairs in real life (Berk, 2009). When people get seriously hurt, they get stitches.

Most of my observations parallel Bobby to the preoperational stage of Piagets constructivist theory, but some of my observations lead me to believe that Bobby may be in transition between preoperational and concrete. For example, if a person really fell off the Eiffel Tower, they would die. In Bobbys world, his triangle person, Bob, just had to get stitches. This example shows that Bobby is still using egocentrism which is described as the failure to distinguish others symbolic viewpoints from ones own. In this case, Bobby also gives the triangle stitches when it gets hurt. He gives his triangle feelings which the piece of paper clearly does not have in real life. Piaget believed all children in the preoperational stage to have animistic thinking, which is when children give inanimate objects (a piece of paper) human qualities, such as feelings, thoughts, wishes, and intentions (Piaget, 1930). Piaget also stated that children in the preoperational stage of cognitive development do not have the ability to conserve.

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This semester I gave Bobby two tasks to see if he had the ability to conserve. On April 17, I had two identical glasses of water and asked him which glass had more or were they both the same. He told me that they were the same. I then poured one of the glasses into a wider glass, making the water line of the wider glass lower than the other. The glasses still had the exact same water in them. I asked Bobby which glass had the most water in it now or were they both the same, and he responded that the glass with the higher water line had the most water in it. This observation gave me reason to believe that Bobby did not have the ability to conserve liquid, which Piagets research states is normal for a child in the preoperational stage since their understanding is centered (Berk, 2009). On April 24, I gave Bobby another conservation task. This time I took 12 pennies and grouped them into two corresponding groups of six. I asked Bobby if there was a penny that could be matched to another penny, or in other words 1-1 correspondence. He said that there was. I then scattered the coins around, so they were not directly across from each other. Even though the pennies were not right across from each other, there was still 1-1 correspondence. I asked him the same question and he told me there was still a match, which led me to believe he had the ability to conserve numbers. This ability to conserve numbers is a characteristic of the concrete operational stage which is usually prominent in children aged seven to eleven (Berk, 2009). I also feel like his drawing is closer to the concrete operations stage rather than the preoperational stage. He is a very detailed drawer and has created cognitive maps, where children create a mental representation of familiar spaces, such as their school or neighborhood (Piaget & Inhelder, 1956).

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Another theorist that is popular for his research in cognitive development is Lev Vygotsky (Berk, 2009). Vygotsky developed a sociocultural theory that emphasized the biological side of cognitive development (Berk, 2009). Vygotsky believed that children use private speech, which is childrens self-directed speech more as tasks become more difficult (Fernyhough & Fradley, 2005). I noticed this to be true in some of my observations of Bobby. When Bobby was sitting at his desk working on his class to-do list, I did not notice very much private speech. However, when he was at a computer taking an Accelerated Reader (AR) test, he would sometimes read the question out-loud and talk out his thought process. Vygotsky stated that in order to promote cognitive development through social interaction, children must participate in intersubjectivity. Intersubjectivity refers to the process where two students in a group begin with a different understanding about a matter, then after discussion arrive at a shared understanding (Newson & Newson, 1975). Bobby is in a reading group with five other students. I have gotten the opportunity to work with his reading group. Before we start reading our leveled reading book, we go through each page and talk about what they think is going on. They all have different opinions and they are all accepted. When we start reading and come to a word that is challenging, I ask the children what they think it means. Everybody has an opportunity to

Tracking Early Childhood Development Case Study answer and then we all come to an agreement of what the word actually means, or a shared

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understanding. Vygotsky also believed that pretend play strengthens childrens ability to think before acting. In his theory he focused on the roles and rules children have to take on in makebelieve play (Bodrova & Leong, 2007). In the triangle family, Bobby took on the role of the father and the rockstar. He was married to Lilas triangle. In the leggo situation, Bobby was pretending to be a police man. They must follow the rules they think are appropriate for the actions of a father or police officer. Being the father, Bobby has to take on the rules of taking care of his children and being there for his wife. Being a police officer, Bobby has to take on the rules and authority of taking care of citizens and enforcing laws. Vygotsky stated that through children establishing these rules in make-believe play, they understand social norms and expectations and strive to follow them (Berk, 2009).

Vygotsky also believed that students at this age should be able to start focusing their attention, memorizing things, and compare the process and findings of their own learning with the teachers expectations (Bodrova & Leong, 2007). On April 17, I observed one of Mrs. Xs read a-louds. She was reading a book about the Earth for Earth Day. She asked some preliminary questions before reading and one of them was, What is the Earth? Bobbys hand immediately shot up and he said, Its the third planet from the sun. Bobbys knowledge about the sun shows that he has the ability to memorize information. When presented with a to-do list in class when I have been there, Bobby sits at his seat and works diligently until he is

Tracking Early Childhood Development Case Study finished. Sitting at his seat for an extended period of time shows that Bobby has the ability to focus. When reading the Earth Day book, Mrs. X read that Earth was the only planet that had life on it. Bobby raised his hand again and said, Well there are such things as aliens. This

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statement showed that he was comparing what Mrs. X said verses what he has found through his own learning. By Bobbys age, most children have achieved most if not all of their brain restructuring. With this, Vygotsky cites that children are presented with a change of expectations and demands (Vygotsky, 1978).

Recently, Bobby was tested for his schools gifted program or as his school calls it, Challenge. Gifted children are recognized as children who model exceptional intellectual strength but each child can have different characteristics that make them classified as gifted (Gardner, 1998b). Mrs. X described a little bit of how the process of being labeled as gifted works. She said teachers were given a checklist to see if a student should be recommended for being tested into the gifted program. Bobby had to go through a preliminary testing which goes on some sort of matrix. Out of the three children recommended in his class, so far Bobby is the strongest candidate for the gifted program according to the test results. One of the characteristics that can label a child as being gifted is creativity. In Bobbys case, when given the chance, he is able to produce work that is original but still appropriate for class (Lubart, 2003).

Tracking Early Childhood Development Case Study Language Development

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There are three theories behind language development. The three theories are the behaviorist perspective, the nativist perspective, and the interactionist perspective. B.F. Skinner stated in his theory that all language is acquired through operant conditioning (Skinner, 1957). In the nativist perspective, Noam Chomsy regarded language as an accomplishment unique to humans (Chomsky, 1957). The most recent theory, the interactionist perspective, applies the information processing perspective to language development. This perspective is responsible for adults creating grammar rules, such as, when making a verb past tense add ed, (Taatgen & Anderson, 2002). When observing a childs language development, it is important to focus on phonological development, semantic development, grammatical development, and pragmatic development. Phonology refers to how children learn to produce the sounds of English and to control language (Tompkins, 2011). When sounding out words from Dr. Seuss book, The Lorax, Bobby focused on the phonemes in words he did not know, and successfully sounded out, truffula, tufts, unloaded, and instant. Bobby is in the highest reading group in his class and is constantly helping children in his reading group sound out words. At his age, research states that Bobby should have a reading vocabulary of 300-500 words (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). One day I asked him to read me all of the words on the word wall, which is over 300 words, and he pronounced all of them correctly. In first grade, children are also expected to know how to decode regular one-syllable words (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). Through working with his reading group, Bobby can sound out almost every one syllable word we come across and even most two-syllable words. According to research, children are expected to recognize irregular but common words, such as where and two (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). Bobby is generally

Tracking Early Childhood Development Case Study successful when recognizing irregular words. However, for Earth Day, Bobby made a poster

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that had a picture of the Earth and said, Save are Earth, on it. This poster made me aware of a possible confusion Bobby has between our and are.

Semantic development deals with how children interpret the meanings or words and how they comprehend stories. Research states that children in first grade start to develop what words mean from context and experiences (Nagy & Scott, 2000). When Ms. Y, the student teacher in the class, was doing a read-aloud with the class, she read a sentence about taking a tooth out of somebodys mouth with a set of pliers. She asked the class what pliers were and called on Bobby to answer. Bobby said, They are very familiar with tools. Pliers are like a tweezer that can grab things. Kind of like a wrench but not. On another occasion he stated that his triangle person fell off the Eiffel Tower. Knowing what pliers and tweezers are as well as what the Eiffel Tower is shows that he has been exposed to this vocabulary before and also can find meaning within the text of a story. From these observations, I can infer that Bobby has a broad vocabulary. When Bobby was about to turn a book back into the library, I asked him what his book was about. He told what happened page by page. He would glance at the page and then tell me what happened throughout the story. In first grade, children are creating their own written texts (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009). In Bobbys case he created his own written text through journal entries. Mrs. X always has the

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children write what they did over the weekend on Monday or Tuesday of the following week. In his most recent journal entry on April 23, he wrote: Over the weekend I went to the spring crnvel. It was fun! I had a sofadall game and we wun the game. I went to my dads frinays haws. I played with my sisti. We played school.

Children often use invented spelling when they need to figure out how to spell a word (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). For example, Bobby spelled carnival, crnvel; softball, sofadall; won, wun; friend, frinays; and house, haws. He has a good idea of how to spell based on phonics, but sometimes forgets letters, adds syllables, or forgets vowels. He is pretty good at spelling,

making sure all sounds are found within the word so sometimes he participates in a second grade task called improved spelling (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). On January 31, I observed Bobby at the Writing Center, working on a booklet. I asked him what he was doing and he told me that he was creating his own language. He then gave the copy of his language to me. It was a language he could pronounce, but he did not set meaning to the words he created. This showed me that he was aware that there were other languages, but not necessarily that he knew there was meaning to them. According to Stanford psychologist, Ellen Markman, children experience

Tracking Early Childhood Development Case Study different languages with mental biases (Cowley, 1997). Markman when children are finding meaning in other languages they start from three assumptions. The assumption that Bobby appears to be using here is that children assume that anything with a name can only have one

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name (Cowley, 1997). Therefore, Bobbys language does not have meaning because that would contradict the language he already knows.

Bobby is very descriptive in his writing. In one of his journal entries he wrote: On our snow day yesterday I had a snow ball fit. It was awesome. I was like CABOOM, COPOW. My friends did the same thing back. Then I went back inside and had some hot Choctate and drew a little bit. Then wal I was drowing I made a new comic book seeries.

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This ability to show such description is representative of how Bobby expresses himself through talking as well. In multiple observations Bobby has exclaimed something is awesome. An example of this is on Valentines Day when the children had all kinds of sweets. When Bobby saw all of the treats laid out on the table, he raised his hands over his head and said, This is awesome! When asked who his best friend was, he responded by saying, Ellen. I then asked him why she was his best friend, Because she lets me annoy her. Well actually Harry and Edward before Ellen. I then asked Bobby he thought made a good friend and he said, Someone who lets you annoying them. They play what I want sometimes and then I play what they want sometimes. When they bet me five dollars, they actually give it to you. Through this conversation, I observed some grammatical errors but overall Bobby speaks really well for a child his age. Bobby demonstrates the use of complex constructions by the use of and and because. He uses the word and to make a connective relation with the phrase, Harry and Edward, and then when he is talking about what makes a good friend. He uses because to make a causal relation in his language (Bloom et al., 1980). Sometimes Bobby uses overregularization when he talks really fast. With overregularization, children apply a morphological rule, and extend it to words that are exceptions. For example, Bobby says that a good friend is, someone who lets you annoying them. He uses the adjective annoying as a verb (Marcus et al., 1992). Bobby also is sequencing. He goes back to his best friend statement and explains that Harry and Edward come before Ellen (Berk, 2009). Development Chart Bobbys Area of Development Physical and motor Strengths
Gross motor skills such as catching, jumping, running, and crossing the monkey bars are mastered. Fine motor

Areas of concern
Sometimes does not use pincer grip when writing with a pencil. I would like to have him practice writing with a marker or

Progress observed
I have noticed that Bobby uses the pincer grip when writing with a pencil more often than at the beginning of the

Tracking Early Childhood Development Case Study


skills like using scissors and using pincer grip while drawing are developmentally appropriate. Example: Can cross the monkey bars alternating arms (whole body movement) and practiced cutting intricately through cutting out a person. an object with a larger radius with a pincer grip. Also I want to see him take his time when he is doing work with a pencil because I feel like when he takes his time, he uses a pincer grip more often. I would also like to see Bobby be able to snap with both hands. Sometimes Bobby gets really competitive and starts to argue with other children. I would like Bobby to not only be a good sport when he wins, but also when he loses. semester.

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Emotional and social

Demonstrates appropriate temperaments and is very empathetic towards others. Example: Works through his to-do list persistently; helps out and shows empathy towards two children with autism.

Cognitive

Language

Demonstrates clear use of mental representations, has sustained attention, and is a realistic drawer. Ex. Mental representation by the leggo representing a police car, sustainted attention in the 30 minutes of making a triangle family, realistic drawer from a pop up card he made. Bobby can sound out words very well, has a broad vocabulary for his age, and can form sentences using expression. Example: Bobby sounding out words from The Lorax, knowing what pliers were in a read-aloud, using the word awesome and capow.

I would like to see Bobby make the next leap into concrete operations by being able to conserve, especially liquid. Right now he is only able to conserve numbers.

Bobby can sound out short and long vowels, but sometimes does not spell words with vowels in them. Also, needs to recognize the difference between commonly confused words such as our and are. Example: carnival spelled as crnvel.

Through the course of the semester, I have seen Bobby improve greatly with handling his frustrations and punishment. Towards the beginning of the semester, Bobby would break down into tears when he became frustrated. Now he just stays quiet for a moment. Bobby has improved his skills relating to memorizing. At the beginning of the semester he was still memorizing, but lately he is constantly amazing me by the things he remembers from reading by himself or with others. Example: Knowing Earth is the third planet from the sun Bobbys vocabulary is expanding through his joy in reading. His writing has improved just in the time I have been there. He is writing a lot more in his journal. He is going above what the teacher requires as far as how many sentences. Bobby is taking his time to portray a more accurate and descriptive story.

Tracking Early Childhood Development Case Study Conclusion From my observations, Bobby seems to be developing normally and perhaps a little advanced for his age. His physical and gross motor development is right on track with the

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exception of not always using a pincer grip. Not using a pincer grip all the time is by no means a setback for Bobby. In the social and emotional domains of development, Bobby is on target through his temperament, empathy towards others, and the types of play he participates in. As for cognitive development, Bobby is ahead for his age. He displays all the characteristics of the preoperational stage of Piagets constructivist approach, but also some aspects of the concrete operations stage. In language development, Bobby is also a little ahead of what psychologists deem as developmentally appropriate for his age. He is a very broad vocabulary, his writing skills are right on track, and he is very good at decoding words. All in all, Bobby is going above and beyond what is developmentally appropriate for his age. Implications If I had the opportunity to explore further, I would want to learn more about Bobbys family, his physical development, and the status of his gifted testing. I would want to know more about his home life, but also what they are doing at home to promote his development. Since Bobby is so young, he did not know how to share specifics about his home life. A good example of this is when I asked Bobby what his parents did for a living, he knew a little about what they did, but not the specifics. I could gather this information by talking to his parents and conducting a home visit. For physical development, I really want to see what physical developments have stemmed from skateboarding. Bobby always talks about how much he loves to skateboard, so I would love to observe him skateboarding to see what gross motor skills are related to this activity. Finally, I would like to be informed of exactly how children are tested

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into gifted and be updated on Bobbys process in testing. To gather this information, I could talk to the gifted teacher when she is available and ask her to demonstrate how she tests children who are recommended for the program. I could also have her get me up to date with where Bobby is in the process and what she thinks about him being labeled as gifted. If Mrs. Xs classroom was mine I would design an environment so that Bobby continues to grow in his development. I would keep some things the same and change others. In order to ensure children maintain healthy habits, I would introduce ideas on how the body works and what makes a person healthy. I would take out unhealthy snacks as incentives and establish good hygiene throughout my classroom, with the use of hand sanitizer and showing the importance of washing hands. The hand sanitizer and showing the importance of washing your hands would be something I would continue doing in my classroom. As for gross motor skills, it is important to provide activities for children so that they arent always sitting. I would make sure they had plenty of opportunities to move around. Something that I would continue in the classroom based on Bobbys strengths is to make sure the children were playing outside everyday and physical education instruction is up to date on what is developmentally appropriate. Going along with gross motor development, it is also important to have activities and resources available to Bobby so that he can improve his fine motor development. Since he does not always use a pincer grip when he is writing with a pencil, I would stress the importance of taking his time on work. I would also continue to give him time at the Writing Center to practice cutting, drawing with different materials, and writing. It seems as though Bobby is very independent, but it is important for me to remember he is still a child and he may need assistance sometimes. Also, giving Bobby time at the Writing Center will help him to grow cognitively through being creative and experimenting with different materials. Another aspect of the

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classroom I would continue doing based on Bobbys strengths is to talk to him as an individual and also in small groups, such as his reading group. This will allow complex ideas to merge and it will also build his vocabulary to help his language and cognitive development grow. I would also engage children in read alouds. In the read alouds, Bobby will feel comfortable speaking to the group and will truly believe his speaking serves as a purpose to the rest of the group. To help Bobby grow in his language development, I will encourage him to talk about what he is going to write to his peers before he writes it. This will help him move into the concrete operations stage as well by creating a cognitive map of what he will write about (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009). The most powerful learning experience for me in this case study was really getting to see what we have been reading about come alive. Being a college student, I always read about things and I am expected to just believe whatever the book tells me. After working on the case study project, I saw Bobbys actions parallel what the psychologists presented in the book. In a way, I feel like I have become an expert on Bobbys development. Bobby has influenced my beliefs about the development of children in a powerful way. Through observing him, I realized that all children are different and they are going to develop at different rates. Some are going to be developmentally ahead for their age, while others are going to be a little behind. I feel like that is why most of the studies we have read about present such a broad age gap, because all children are developing at different speeds. Through this assignment I realized how important it is to gather information on every student you have in class, so that you can push them when they need pushed or assist them when they need help. Sometimes that is easier said than done. However, through my Child Developmental class I have learned quick, efficient ways to take observations of children. This case study experience helped me grasp these concepts in a way I never knew was possible. The project went above and beyond a hands-on experience.

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