Observation On Child Development

Observation

I feel I have strong beliefs and values when it comes to children, I believe children learn from experiencing things and I believe children need to take risks at times to enable their learning. However, I am still a very cautious person and find myself often reminding the children that their actions may not be safe, which I know can at times be hindering to a child’s development. Both Piaget’s constructivist theory and Structuralist theory have influenced my beliefs on how children learn. Piaget believes that ‘Children construct their own knowledge through independent and active exploration of the environment and that the educator is a facilitator, resource and observer (Kearns 2010). I also have the perception that free play

I think sometimes I may be too specific with what I am observing and not noticing the incidentals. I feel I can observe without judgment most of the time unless I feel the child could be injured or hurt, I then feel I have a duty of care to step in before they are hurt or injured. I do have strong beliefs but still try to value each child’s culture and beliefs before expressing my own. I try to record direct quotes from children as this can help with interpretations later and given children’s observations a voice. I feel observing the mood of the experience as extremely beneficial, a person’s body language, expressions, gestures and voice intonation can sometimes give more clues than the spoken language, especially in young children that find it hard to express themselves in spoken language.

The Early Years Learning Framework [EYLF] (2009) advises to be responsive to children, educators need to value each child as an individual, building on their strengths, skill and knowledge. By incorporating children’s ideas, interests and play, educators can challenge and enrich children’s learning (pg.

Also, ensuring that I have selected the evidence needed to complete an evaluation of development and to ensure the observations are not based solely on my own perception and assumptions and that I am aware of the perspectives of others. Using critical thinking skills will help to make sense of observations and decipher what is important and what is not. Burke (2005) confirms when stating “Critical thinking is essential to making sense of observations