Importance of Observation in Early Childhood Settings

Introduction

Children are unique, complex and difficult to cognize. You will find them under different moods,  friendly now, reserved later; bold and shy; happy and sad; talkative and quiet. They are in middle of unpredictable array of discoveries, emotions and levels of energy. It's harder for them to give words to their emotions and explain us (adults) about their caprice as they explore the world that surrounds them. However, as educators, we should make every effort to know our children deeply, to be aware of their circumstances, to understand their currents and to accompany them in their journeys of building elementary theories for the world around them.

5 reasons to observe children

Observation is basically a tool / yardstick to measure the development of a child in all seven areas of learning. It gives a record for all the below aspects when observed closely:

• Child's interests and preferences
• Child's levels of cognitive and social development
• Child's strategies for creating desired effects
• Child's skills and accomplishments
• Child's personalities and temperaments

Objectivity; The Essence of Observation

It is very important that observation should remain objective and subjectivity which could be based on assumptions or our previous experiences should not be a part of this process. While taking records, we should not use subjective words like probably, always, never, often, frequently, previously etc. Also, while expressing amount or time we need to be very much accurate about the count and subjective words like few, some, more, many, tall, short, big, small etc. should be avoided.

Styles of Observation

There are different styles of observation and every style has its own pros and cons. Which style will go with our requirement depends on the nature of the requirement. The most common style of observation is a Running Record. This style captures the live scenario and therefore, it is always in present tense. It is illustrated in a manner that it gives each and every detail of child's movement. This style is very effective in identifying the issue and to know a new comer in the class. Direct quote of the child may also be a part of the record. Plus, a conclusion of the complete observation is a must.

The other most popular style is Anecdotal Record. They are short yet accurate and objective and are used to record qualitative information like specific behavior of child or conversation between two children. They are written after the occurrence of the fact but on the very same day. In contrary to running record, they are written in past tense. They help educators to plan activities and to observe the growth in child’s learning. The good part of this style is it does not hamper the educator's work as they are recorded after the class or during the break time. However, one could take notes of key words from the happening during the class in order to avoid the chance of missing any small or critical detail.

Checklist is also a style of observation. These could also be used to observe specific traits or behavior. These are especially useful for types of behavior or traits than can be easily and clearly specified. Information from anecdotal and running records can be transferred to checklists to make interpretation easier. It is the easiest and quickest form of observation, yet it also has some demerits. It could only be meaningful for things that could be answer in a perfect yes or no. As, it cannot explain the extent of a happening or behavior. Plus, it does not take in account the context or sequence of happening.

The last style of observation is rating scale which we usually see in our report cards. The merit of using rating scale over checklist is that they can take extend of a happening in record. However, both checklist and rating scale examine only the specific traits and may overlook the other important behavior and again both could be subjective based on observer’s experiences with child which could lead to biasedness.