Annaliz Panida

ITE 326-412
November 18, 2014
Child Study Paper
Introduction
The student I chose to observe is named Leilani for the purpose of this paper. She is a first
grader at Webling Elementary School. I was immediately drawn to this student because of her
unique and special personality. Leilani is an outgoing, talkative, brave and smart young girl. She can
easily strike a conversation with anyone. Almost every morning I am in field, Leilani welcomes me
as she walks into the classroom. She would hug me and say, Hi Ms. Panida! Then she would talk
to me about her morning or ask me questions. She has a very curious mind like any child, thus, she
is not afraid to speak her opinion truthfully. However, because she is very talkative in the classroom,
she can sometimes come off as being rude and disrespectful. For instance, during class discussions,
she would talk without raising her hand and speak while the teacher or another student is speaking.
On the other hand, when she does answer questions during discussions she answers them correctly
and she sounds like she knows what she is talking about. Academically, Leilani struggles with
reading and writing the most. She is unable to read long sentences on her own without help.
Although, she does try her best in learning both content areas.
Leilani can also be kind, caring, and helpful to others. I believe she views herself as a mother
or teacher figure sometimes because she likes to tell others what to do and help them. Yet, her
behavior when helping others can eventually be mistaken for being bossy and too authoritative. All
in all, I think her behavior in the classroom really depends on the type of day she is having. For
example, when she greets me in the morning with full energy, she tends to pay more attention in
class, do her assignments, and behave appropriately. On the contrary, when she is quiet and tired
looking in the morning, she is usually out of the loop throughout the rest of the school day. She gets
easily distracted and does not focus or work productively. At the carpet, she would for instance,

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touch things around her and not sit still. For my child study, I observed Leilani every Wednesday and
Thursday from October 15, 2014 through November 13, 2014.
Teacher Interactions
My mentor teacher interacts with Leilani the same way she interacts with all her students.
She demonstrates mutual respect and care to her students with varied needs and backgrounds by
taking interests in them and their personal lives. For instance, I would sometimes overhear my
mentor talk to her student's about their families and how they are doing.
Moreover, when there is misbehavior in the classroom, I believe my mentor practices similar
guidance/management strategies with all her students. For example, when a student is not focusing
during a lesson, my mentor would say their name out loud and give them eye contact so that he/she
could think twice about what he/she was doing wrong. My mentor teacher has done this several
times with Leilani because she likes to talk a lot and disturb other people while working. On the
other note, my mentor likes to recognize students who show that they are ready to learn. She would
say, Oh, I like how ______ is sitting so nicely at the carpet and is ready to learn. When she does
this, I feel other students become more aware and try to behave in a similar way so that the teacher
would recognize them too. From my observation, Leilani was recognized for good behavior a few
times.
Classmate Interaction
Leilanis interaction with other students does have its ups and downs. There are times when
Leilani can work well with others and times when she cannot. A time I saw her work well with her
peers was when the teacher would have her students think, pair, and share. For that brief amount of
time, Leilani is able to communicate her thoughts to her peers and listen very well. Another time I
saw her work well with her peers was when the class were given the task to finish their individual
animal project. Leilani and her peers on her table thought it would be a great idea to put a bald eagle

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at the top of their animal projects. It was interesting to see how they collaborated on the idea because
all their bald eagles they made with construction paper looked very similar.
Besides that, I have seen several incidents where Leilani would get into arguments with other
students because she likes to tell her teacher what another student is doing wrong. Thus, I feel other
students do not like her as much. For instance, during our field trip at Hawaii Nature Center, Leilani
kept telling another student what to do, then unexpectedly, that student finally blurted out, Stop
Leilani, youre so bossy! Also, when the class was being split up into groups, I overheard another
student say, Why is she in my group again? I like Leilani, but I dont want her in my group.
Overall, I feel Leilanis interaction with other children varies sometimes. She can be really nice to
you and hold a conversation or she can be a bit overly bossy. I think Leilani assumes that whatever
she says or do is always right compared to her peers.
Safe Environment
I think Webling Elementary School promotes a somewhat safe and positive place for Leilani
academically, socially, emotionally, and physically. Safety in the school I feel has been well
established. There are rules students must abide by for their physical safety and several drills they
must understand and practice. I was able to experience a fire drill, earthquake drill, and evacuation
drill with my students. Furthermore, my students are required to participate in a guidance class about
once a week. This class helps students to learn how to keep a safe and positive environment
physically, socially, and emotionally. In the last guidance class I observed, my students were
learning about bullying and steps to prevent it. In spite of that, I did overhear the counselor speak to
my mentor about how students have been playing rough during recess. This was a concern because
there have been too many reports of students being sent to the nurses room. Therefore, the school
might be written up and looked at by public officials if rough playing continues.

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Academically, I feel Leilani is exposed to a variety of resources that might benefit her
learning. Even though some of the new workbooks might be challenging for her, I think it is great
her teacher takes some time to work with Leilani and other struggling students on pronouncing and
reading sight words they should already know.
Child Participation
Leilanis participation in school activities can vary depending on the task and her mood for
the day. Sometimes she can be very engaged and involved and sometimes she can loose focus and go
into her own world. For instance, when the class would do the morning calendar at the beginning or
middle of the day, I noticed Leilani would focus and participate on some days, but on other days she
would talk to her peers and not pay attention. As I took note of the morning calendar routine, I feel it
can sometimes be very time consuming and boring. So I would expect for Leilani and other students
to loose some interest and get distracted.
Furthermore, from my observation, I noticed that Leilani enjoys activities that are hands-on.
For example, as Leilani worked on her animal project, I saw that she was very productive, quiet, and
focused. That project required her to color, cut, glue, and paint her animal habitat. In addition, for
Math, I noticed that Leilani enjoys working with tangible objects like connecting cubes or linking
chains to solve a problem. I believe that with these types of activities, Leilani demonstrates being
self-directed learner and quality producer very well.
On the contrary, when Leilani is given a worksheet to do independently for reading, writing,
or math, I found that she tends to loose a lot of focus and interest. Sometimes she would just rush
through the process of doing the worksheet as well. For instance, because she does not know how to
write many words, she would instead write random letters on her paper and depend on myself or my
mentor to write out her actual thinking. Granted that she can get lazy doing those assignments, she
does make the effort to ask for help from myself or my mentor on how to read or write something.

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During recess, Leilani likes to run around with other students and play on the playground
because when she returns back to class her face is always red and sweaty. After recess, during
DEAR time, I found that Leilani has such a big imagination. DEAR time is when students drop
everything and read a book quietly for fifteen minutes. Yet for Leilani, she does not read her book.
Instead, she would make up the story based on the pictures of the book.
Reflection
After observing Leilani, I feel I learned so many new things about her as an individual and
her as a learner. I think taking the time to observe and understand your students is not an easy task as
a teacher especially if you have twenty students. It takes a lot of time and patience, but I believe it is
important when helping diverse learners. Students varied backgrounds and needs are what
influences teachers planning and instruction. Without that, a teacher would not be doing their job of
helping all his/her students learn. A student cannot learn with just information being given to them, a
student must learn through varied engagements; doing something that sparks and influences their
learning experience.
If I were Leilanis teacher, I probably would like to try different, but similar methods my
mentor does to enhance Leilanis experiences and achievements in school. First of all, since I
know Leilani enjoys doing hands-on activities, I would want to incorporate more creative and
engaging activities in my lesson that might interest her just like the animal project. I believe these
types of activities would influence Leilanis learning and work habits. In addition, I might want to
include more short discussions throughout the school day since Leilani loves to talk a lot. For
instance, I could do think, pair, share or group discussions for my students to express and share
their wonderful thinking. Moreover, since Leilani is currently struggling with reading and
writing, I might want to work with her one on one every other day so that she receives that extra
practice and motivation for achievement. I would also do the same thing my mentor does. I

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would group my students into reading groups so that I could practice instructional interventions
with them like saying sight words.
For classroom management, I would want to develop an empathetic classroom culture.
According to Sornson (2010), empathy is the ability to identify with and understand somebody
elses feelings. If I were to demonstrate and emphasize on this trait everyday, I think this would
impact all my students in a positive way. They will learn to feel empathy for each other and help
to provide a safe and positive classroom environment. This is important for Leilani because she
needs to understand that her attitude towards others is not respectful or nice sometimes. Another
classroom management skill I could do with Leilani and all my students is address behavior
issues quickly and wisely (Alber, 2012). For instance, if Leilani were to disrupt the class, I
would quickly take her aside from the other students when appropriate and address her bad
behavior in a positive approach. So I am not going to show her that I am angry, I will use a
neutral, but stern voice to show that I care and am concerned of her learning as well as her peers.
Lastly, I would want to build connections with my students families. Establishing parent
involvement in school has result to positive influences on school-related outcomes for children
(Hill & Taylor, 2004). So if I were to share a connection with Leilanis parents, I believe Leilani
would do much better academically and socially because of the communication we are sharing. I
might for instance, inform the parents of Leilani that their daughter is a bright student in my
classroom who does try her very best, but is still struggling with reading. I might also suggest that
they devote a couple minutes a day with Leilani reading so that she has additional practice outside
of school. In result, I believe Leilani would become more comfortable and confident reading on
her own.

Annaliz Panida
ITE 326-412
November 18, 2014
Work Cited
Alber,R.(2012,March13).5QuickClassroomManagementTipsforNoviceTeachers.
RetrievedNovember17,2014,fromhttp://www.edutopia.org/blog/classroom
managementtipsnoviceteachersrebeccaalber
Hill,N.,&Taylor,L.(2004).ParentalSchoolInvolvementandChildren'sAchievement.Current
DirectionsinPsychologicalScience,13(4),161161.
Sornson,B.(2010,January1).MasteringClassroomManagement.RetrievedNovember17,2014,
fromhttp://www.ascd.org/ascdexpress/vol5/524sornson.aspx