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Sarah Hirsch
Sonya Gaches
TLS 303 Spring 16
06 May 2016
Pre-K Child Development Case Study

Description of Child and Family Background

My case study child, Amanda, is part of a five-person family. This consists
of her mother, father, sister, herself, and a baby brother. In the beginning of
this semester, Amandas mother gave birth to a baby brother so their routines
slightly changed to accommodate this new family member. Amandas father
became a more present influence in the classroom to help out at home. Amandas
great grandmother also helps out with caring for the girls to lighten the load on
Amandas mother. Amandas mother is a stay at home mom while her father works
for a power company. The family normally takes many vacations every year but has
told me that they will most likely be unable to do this this year because of the new
baby and him being to young to really travel. In the middle of the semester,
Amanda was enrolled in a softball team in her community. Amandas birth was
planned and her mother had a natural birth with her. Amanda was born on May 18,
2011 at 8 pounds, 3 ounces. Amandas mother was initially worried about a potential

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speech delay so my mentor teacher directed her to the district facility but they
found nothing wrong with her and her speech developed along with her peers.

Physical Strengths and Future Growth Needs

Amanda usually chooses to participate in more gross motor activities during
our outside time. After she started softball, she gravitated more to our t-ball set
up that my mentor put out for a few weeks. It was clear that she had developed
skills with holding and swinging a bat and had the hand-eye coordination to throw
and catch balls with her classmates (Anecdotal Note 3-15). Amanda has developed
the skill of using a pincer grasp when turning pages in a book or picking up blocks to
build a tower (Anecdotal Note 3-08). Amanda has participated in many activities
that strengthen the skills needed to hold a pencil and write using a tripod grasp,
such as using an eyedropper (Photo 31).
Amanda still reverts back to using a full-handed grasp when writing
occasionally. She could use some more activities that strengthen this grasp
naturally. She responds when prompted to switch, but sometimes will not fix it
independently. Since Amanda normally gravitates toward the same activities that
work her gross motor skills, providing activities that work on different muscle
groups that are not being used as much would benefit her growth (Anecdotal Note
3-04 and 3-15).

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Physical School-Based Activities

School-Based Activities that would benefit Amandas development would be
to provide her with a wide range of gross motor activities to participate in, such as
jump rope, hula-hoops, and riding a tricycle. To further develop her fine motor
skills, she would benefit from activities such as stringing beads onto yarn or
weaving ribbons through a fence. She could also dust things with a cotton ball to
fully develop that tripod grasp.

Physical Home-Based Activities

Amandas gross motor development should continue to progress through her
participation in softball. Since her family enjoys being outdoors, going on hikes or
fishing could continue to develop her gross motor skills. She practices writing at
home frequently so possibly giving her a tool to put on her writing utensil to help
her fully develop the tripod grasp would help her fine motor development.

Cognitive Strengths and Future Growth Needs

Amanda has a good memory and is able to remember the story lines for
books so she can read them to others (Anecdotal Note 3-31). Her memory skills
are also seen through her ability to sing all the songs correctly to the songs that
we use in class frequently (Anecdotal Note 4-15). She has shown an interest in
sorting materials throughout the semester. I have seen her sort our classroom

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markers by color many times (Anecdotal Note 04-05). Amanda has developed the
skill of understanding and being able to use symbols this semester (Anecdotal Note
4-15).
I have not seen Amanda use the skill of reasoning with other students, as
she just tends to accept whatever another student tells her. I would like to see
her knowledge of books grow and see what other books she can read (Anecdotal
Note 3-31).

Cognitive School-Based Activities

Doing an activity with different books that we have read in the class to see
what Amanda remembers from each storyline. I would like to see if Amanda would
be able to make her own symbol cards to use in the classroom that depict different
actions that would be beneficial to the classroom environment.

Cognitive Home-Based Activities

Amandas mother has told me that she really enjoys singing. I think an
activity that could benefit her cognitive development would be to play her a song a
few times and see what she can remember from it. Continuing to read books to her
and seeing what she can remember from the story line will also greatly benefit
Amandas development.

Language Strengths and Future Growth

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Amanda has shown her development of the skill of using correct pragmatics
when talking to her peers, family, or teachers (Home Engagement 4). Amanda uses
mostly correct grammar when expressing herself (Language Development 4-11).
Amanda uses telegraphic speech in some places when she thinks others will
understand her message and if they dont she will recognize this and fully state
what she is trying to say (Language Development 4-25).
I only noticed on a few occasions that Amanda would take on a directive tine
or a tone that differed from her usual one (Language Development 4-25). I would
like to see her strengthen this development of experimenting with different tones.

Language School-Based Activities

Some school-based activities that Amanda would benefit from would be to
sing certain songs or recite certain poems that help her understand correct
grammar and some speech skills such as rhyming or tone of speech. An activity
that uses rhyming words would help Amanda in her development of vocabulary that
she could use in her everyday speech.

Language Home-Based Activities

The family enjoys having conversations together at the end of their day. A
way to use this time to strengthen Amandas language development would be to ask
extending questions to have Amanda use expressive language to tell her story or

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explain her point. The family could also start having a word of the day for Amanda
as a way to add to her vocabulary and so she could learn new words that could help
her express herself.

Emotional Strengths and Future Growth

Amanda is very cooperative with adults during activities. She is able to
follow instructions and does not give up easily on activities (Anecdotal Note 4-28).
Amanda is able to express her emotions verbally by responding to a question about
how she was doing (Anecdotal Note 4-28).
Amanda has shown some self-consciousness during some group activities
where she does not know all members present (Anecdotal Note 4-28). I think that
working out how she is feeling when in these circumstances could help her develop
the skills to work past any self-consciousness that she may be feeling.

Emotional School-Based Activities

I would like Amanda to continue to interact with her teachers and peers in
activities that require her to cooperate the keep this level of development where
it is. I think that having activities where Amanda is exposed to different
experiences to push her just a little outside of her comfort zone such as
participating in an event with the kinder students would help with her selfconsciousness.

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Emotional Home-Based Activities

I noticed that Amanda started to come out of her shell more once she was
enrolled in the softball team. I think that continuing in this activity will help work
on her development of some confidence. I think another great opportunity for
Amanda emotionally would be to possibly enroll her in another activity, possibly
cheerleading since her sister is currently in that as well.

Social Strengths and Future Growth

Amanda has shown strength in being able to solve conflicts with classmates.
She is able to use a calm and clear voice to express what could be done to solve
something that is causing a conflict (Anecdotal Note 4-21). Amanda is also able to
help others with setting up their own activities and show them how to do it
themselves (Anecdotal Note 4-21).
I would like to further observe Amanda to see if there are any noticeable
friendships that she has made in the classroom. Amanda has shown cooperation
with adults but I would like to see if she is able to cooperate with her peers as well
(Anecdotal Note 4-28).

Social School-Based Activities

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I would like to create an activity where Amanda would receive random
scenarios depicting conflicts in a classroom and Amanda would have to think about
how she best thinks that these conflicts could be solved.

Social Home-Based Activities

I think that keeping Amanda in activities that keep her social with other
children her age, such as her participation in softball will help her development in
these areas. I think that possibly exposing her to more community events with
children her own age could help her to begin to form friendships with other
children.