Middle Childhood Observation Paper

738 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Development stages of a child

My objective in writing this summary is to discuss my field experience observing a child in the middle childhood stage of development. Zacharias is a 7 year old student in the first grade at Jackson-Keller Elementary. I will discuss the developmental milestones Zacharias has reached, as well as those he has not yet accomplished. I will give recommended activities to assist with the student’s development.
Physical Development Milestones
Observing Zacharias on the playground, it was evident that he had reached several gross motor skills milestones for middle childhood. He could skip rope, play hopscotch, and do a jumping jack as most 7 year old children can do (Feldman, 2012). He participated in the bike rodeo showing his muscle coordination, …show more content…

Zacharias has not accomplished this milestone is his development. Due to his short attention span, he quickly loses focus during activities and assignments and frequently speaks of how he wants and misses his mother. This behavior is not typical for this stage as most children in middle childhood are less dependent on their families (CDC, 2016). Zacharias continues to maintain a strong dependency on his mother.
Zacharias does not seem to be in the concrete operational stage. According to Piaget, this stage occurs between 7-12 years (Feldman, 2012). When conducting the conservation experiment of pouring liquid from one container to another, Zacharias did not grasp the concept that the amount of liquid remained the same (Feldman, 2012). This is understandable because he is on the younger end of the age …show more content…

Zacharias has not reached this milestone. He has trouble pronouncing most words and is not easily understood by his teacher or peers. He also has trouble with pragmatics. Zacharias is asked to repeat back to the teacher instructions that were given to assist with clarifying his understanding. Zacharias is being considered for special services for his delayed speech and language development.
Social Development Milestones
Friendships are mainly with the same gender during middle childhood (CDC, 2016). Zacharias does not fall within this typical milestone. He interacts with both boys and girls during play in the classroom and on the playground.
According to Feldman (2012), “Almost one fourth of all children under the age of 18 in the United States live with only one parent” (p. 343). This is the situation with Zacharias. It is unclear how his family dynamic might impact his social life; however, as stated earlier, he has a heavy dependency on his

Show More
Related

  • Child Development Observation Report

    2419 Words  | 5 Pages

    Physical Development: For Manden physical development, he did not start to crawl yet. However, he is actively rolling over his body while playing with his mother or sister. Other than that, whenever we put him in the baby’s chair, he needs the support, or else his head might fall down to the front. Based on the researches, Manden has not yet reached the norms of motor development, either gross motor or fine motor, for his age group (Steinberg et al., 2011, p. 109).

    Read More

  • Preschool Observation Paper

    1262 Words  | 3 Pages

    The daycare that I visited was Rosemont Daycare and Preschool. This center is faith based and I was able observe the “Duck Class” which was the age group of four and five year olds. I went to observe on February 11th and 16th, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 and the 18th from 3:00 to 6:00. On the 11th and 16th, there were a total of 12 children in the Duck class. At 9:00 the children were engaged in circle time meaning that the children were learning about their bible verse for that month which was “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.” The children then discussed what they thought that meant. On the 11th I was present to see the children, the ones I decided to observe were Kali, Roslyn, Fiona, and Brayden. When the children were doing crafts I sat near the counter island in the class room so I was out of the way but still able to see and hear what the kids were doing and saying at the table.

    Read More

  • The Importance of Biosocial Cognitive and Psychosocial Measures

    1968 Words  | 4 Pages

    Gross motor development is the review of the child’s capability to move in a consistent man...

    Read More

  • Childhood Observation Essay

    714 Words  | 2 Pages

    Lots of observations were collected whilst the children were making their maps and working together to find the word treasure, so I have highlighted just a few to address the overall understandings of the findings.

    Read More

  • Learning and Cognitive Development in Teens

    1536 Words  | 4 Pages

    A development that is very important to a middle age child is the ability to use social comparison and compare people to them. During this time, children look towards their peers to compare themselves and start friendships with children that are similar to them. It is also important for the child and their parents, during this time to have a good parent-child relationship. These are all developments that a child should be able to obtain when they reach middle school age and shows that they are on the right track to be able to exceed at their education and function in society. Although it is ideal for every child to be able to grasp these goals, children like Ryan, struggle to be able to master theses skills and start falling behind.

    Read More

  • Developments in Middle Childhood

    1577 Words  | 4 Pages

    Middle Childhood is a distinct period of development where a child develops physically, cognitively and social-emotionally. Between the school years of 3 and 7, children begin to gain an understanding of themselves in comparison to others, learn large amounts of information, manage their behaviour and also develop self-concepts and self-esteem. (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2010.)

    Read More

  • Child Development Essay

    1688 Words  | 4 Pages

    “The path of development is a journey of discovery that is clear only in retrospect, and it’s rarely a straight line” (Kennedy-Moore & Lowenthal, 2011). Because development happens this way, it can have many implications for teachers. There are multiple factors and processes that contribute to the variability of individual development of children, however, these differences can be overcome and teachers can give every child the support they need to achieve. Factors specific to the middle childhood years include vocabulary development, differing temperaments, development of attention, fine motor coordination, gross motor skills development and concrete operational development, including conservation, classification and seriation. Although they can create some disorder, these factors should not significantly hinder a child’s education, but teachers should adjust their lesson plans to accommodate all kinds of abilities, including physical abilities.

    Read More

  • Early Childhood Observation Essay

    943 Words  | 2 Pages

    Colette Tayler (2015) describes the first eight years of a child’s life as years of

    Read More

  • Motivation Of Child Observation

    1785 Words  | 4 Pages

    I observed Mrs. Linscott’s classroom with three year olds at the East Lansing Child Development Laboratory. Along with the children, there were a few adults to help in the class. I focused on seven main things while observing the children. First, I focused on one child for 15 minutes and took note of their motor, language, and social development. The second thing I observed was how the adults in the classroom interacted with the children. Third, I payed attention to the children’s emotional development. Next, I took notes on the children’s communication and language skills. I also observed the children’s behavior from a Piagetian perspective.  Then, I observed how the children’s learning could be shaped by the interactions with the adults.

    Read More

  • The Basics of Early Childhood Development

    2127 Words  | 5 Pages

    Now there are development standards defined and expectations of a child as a whole. The development standards define the milestones a child should pass by a certain age. These milestones are basically “what children should know and be able to do”. (Shala 7). Because of this early childhood development’s main goal is to thoroughly progress a child’s potential in their social, motor, and cognitive development. (“Early” 1). While development itself is made up of changes in the amount of difficulty attempting certain activities and acquiring skills, gradual movement from basic to complex adjustments in learning, and gaining new ways to move one's body. (Damovska et al 13). For this reason it has become dire for programs to exist that are aimed at younger groups of children so that their mental and social development may continue on track. (“Early” 1). While their level of behavioral unde...

    Read More

  • Toddler Observation Paper

    998 Words  | 2 Pages

    Toddler in blue shirt – He appears to be around 18 – 24 months old. While his motor development appears to be weak, and he does not seem to have accomplished the self-help development or language development, he has accomplished other milestones; such as social/emotional development, by playing alone for short periods of time and asserting some independence, and cognitive development, by passing items from one hand to the other, although he is not able to stay with one activity for very long.

    Read More

  • Physical Development Observation Paper

    1837 Words  | 4 Pages

    While completing my practicum this last semester I observed an seven year old boy named J. J is a second grader in a mixed first and second grade Montessori classroom at Sandhills Primary School. He is smart and excels at science. J is also on the autism spectrum. He is the first born to his twin brother. They are not in the same class due to different academic levels, but they have a very good relationship. In comparison to his twin J seems to be more advanced academically and physically. While Kidwatching J I was able to learn a lot about the way that he thinks and learns. Throughout this paper I will discuss J’s physical, affective, and cognitive development.

    Read More

  • Childhood Disorder: Expressive Learning Disorder

    1277 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sariah (YouTube, 2009) age ten remembers word poorly and produces sentences that are shorter or less complicated than is developmentally suitable. Sariah understands the material she is making an attempt to communicate. She cannot produce the proper sentences to verbalize her thoughts. Sariah has a similar ability to comprehend speech as her peers and has a similar level of intelligence. Sariah has issues in e...

    Read More

  • Child Development Observation Essay

    1688 Words  | 4 Pages

    Children discover that they have different abilities and skills such as playing with toys and putting on shoes and these skills show that the child has a growing sense of autonomy and independence (Parrish, 2010). Carl is clearly at stage 2 that is autonomous versus doubt and shame where the child tries to achieve independence and purpose. This is clear from the fact that he will constantly refuse help from his mother especially during mealtimes and likes to feed himself. He will choose what to eat and an example of this is when his mother gave him some pasta with a serving of potatoes, but he refused to eat that and instead wanted to eat fruit pudding. He tends to choose the toys he wants to play with and his mother clearly understands this by asking him which toys he wants each time he wants to play. The efforts of his mother supporting and encouraging him motivates his confidence, security and independence in his own abilities and enables him to survive and take on b activities in the

    Read More

  • Kindergarten Classroom Observation Report

    1344 Words  | 3 Pages

    In electing to observe a kindergarten class, I was hoping to see ‘real world’ examples of the social development, personality types and cognitive variation found within the beginning stages of “Middle Childhood” as discussed within our text.

    Read More

More about Middle Childhood Observation Paper

Open Document