Gabi Cohen

TLS 312

Acosta

1 May 2018

Benchmark

Language Observation Assessment and Socio-cultural Family and Community

knowledge Case Study

Part A. Oral Language Development Assessment (Family Interaction and Home

engagement #1)

My case study child is a 3-year-old boy named Hudson. He was born on June 24, 2014.

He is at proper development stage for his young age of 3. He will be returning to preschool next

year because of his young age. Hudson currently attends Second Street Children’s School in a ¾

year old classroom called the Rainbow class. Hudson has had quality interactions with literacy

and language his entire life. Hudson has a mom named Sara and a dad named Erik. Hudson

does not have any siblings, although his mom is currently pregnant with their second child and

is due in September. Hudson enjoys playing with his cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents.

Sarah’s mom who Hudson calls Nana, lives in an assisted living home and has been paraplegic

for about 35 years. He enjoys going to pick her up and bring her over. Dad says that the care

takers and the other residents at the living home “Swoon over him.” Hudson also enjoys playing

with mom’s nephew, Chase, who is 2 years old. Hudson usually sees family on holidays and

some weekends.
 When I went into my first home visit, Hudson’s parents shared with me that they are

heavily involved in their community. Although they are not religious and do not often go to

church, they are involved in other ways. They had just gone to the St. Patrick’s Day Parade the

week prior to my first home visit and they were telling me how much Hudson enjoyed it. Since

Second Street Children’s School is right across from Himmel Park, they told me they love taking

Hudson there on the weekends and after school. Before Hudson attended preschool at Second

Street, they would take him to Mr. Nature for a jam session once a week to get him accustomed

to a new setting besides his home. They also love taking him to Home Depot because

sometimes they offer children’s activities there. Hudson goes to soccer practice every Sunday,

has started swim lessons, has been to the Tucson Orchestra as well as many other places with

his parents. Sara shared with me that Hudson is a good kicker and also that he has been a great

swimmer since he was a baby. Hudson enjoys going to Costco with his parents after school and

going to the library to pick out a few books. Hudson’s parents love him and gives him a ton of

attention and are interested to see how Hudson does with a new baby in the house. When his

parents sat him down and told him the big news, he later came to school and told my mentor

teacher and I that his mom was, “Growing a blueberry inside of her belly.” I am not sure if this

is something he came up with on his own or the way they told him, but it was such a creative

way to think about this new thing coming into his life. I think he will benefit from having a

sibling at home to play with because in absence of that, he seeks attention daily. They also do

not own any cats or dogs because mom and dad like the opposite animal, so Hudson likely gets

lonely when it comes to playing at home. You can tell this is a hard transition for him when he

comes to school because the fact that he is an only child, I assume his parents spoil him. Then
when he comes to school, it is hard for him to understand the concept of sharing toys. He is

able to verbally explain when he is upset but has a hard time dealing with his frustration.

Hudson’s parents have supported her language development since he was a baby. They

read to him every night and allow him to explore books on his own and tell his own stories.

They play games/puzzles with him, take him on many outings, and allow him to express himself

emotionally and verbally. Hudson has grown a lot this year and has really been able to express

himself verbally to us or to peers, even if he has a hard time dealing with his frustration.

Hudson loves to read books and I think he gets his creative side from all the different books he

reads. I learned from my first home engagement that Hudson comes from a loving environment

with parents who care about him deeply.

The dynamics of my first home visit were the parents greeted me and sat me down at

the kitchen table and we just talked casually. They were very open with me about his

developments and background. About halfway into the visit, they woke up Hudson and he

showed me his room, toys and told me all kinds of stories. Although I was at the first home visit

for about 45 minutes, Hudson was only up for about half of the visit and he did share stories

with me, but I decided to pick a dialogue that happened at school between me, Hudson and

another child in our class. He had the same vocabulary both at home and at school and I

wanted to focus my first home visit on the interaction with the parents and not worry about

audio taping the child. I had ample time to do a recording at school during outdoor play.

Monday, April 23, 2018 Morning Outdoor Play with Case Study Child Hudson-Playing in Mud
Kitchen

Gabi: Hudson what are you doing?

Hudson: Putting these in the oven. Because this is a bakery.
G: Oh, you’re working in a bakery. And what kind of food item is that?
H: This is a donut store. It’s not a healthy store.
G: Oh, it’s a donut store! You’re right, donuts are not healthy.
H: We have healthy foods.
G: What kinds of healthy food options do you have?
H: Hamburgers.
G: Hamburgers aren’t healthy silly! Do you have healthy options too?
H: We have French fries, and dino bites, and chicken, and pork and rice.
G: So, you have a lot of different types of food?
H: Yes.
Other child: It’s soapy water!
H: It’s not soapy water!
G: What is it?
H: It’s semi.
G: What is semi?
H: The semi makes the food really sweet.
G: Semi-sweet chocolate?
H: Yes.
*Classmate put something in Hudson’s pot*
H: No I don’t want you to put it in there!
G: Cas, Hudson doesn’t want you to put it in there, why don’t you put it in the pot on the
ground it doesn’t look like anyone’s using that one.
H: Yeah, I’m still using them.
*Cas continues to pour water in his pot*
H: NOOOOO!!
*I intervene and help Cas find a different pot to play with*
G: Hudson what are you doing now?
H: Blubby.
G: Blubby?
H: To make the cupcakes sweet.
G: I’ve never heard of it.
H: Yeah, its yucky, so it’s not for any person to eat. You know that I eat yucky syrup.
G: You eat yucky syrup when you’re sick to make you feel better?
H: No I eat it all the time.
G: Why do you eat yucky syrup all the time?
H: Because I like it.
G: Ohh, so its yucky but you like the taste?
H: Yeah! Cas put that water in there.
G: You changed your mind Hudson?
H: Yeah, it’s okay now. It’s a mixture.
*Time to clean up and read a book outside before snack*
 From this I observed that Hudson is very creative in his language and that after a little

scaffolding, he is able to share toys and work problems out for himself by verbalizing to his

peers his wants and needs. From this language sample, Hudson was putting together sentences

that were on average, seven words long. However, the most amount of words he was able to

form in one sentence was 18 words. He had some ideas about how a store was set up and was

able to describe to me his personal preferences from this conversation. He incorporated foods

that he is accustomed to at home into this language sample and does not suffer from speech

impediments, stutters, or any other language barrier.

Section B. Socio-Cultural Knowledge and Family Interview/Dialogue (Family Interaction and

Home engagement #2)

The second home visit was hard to schedule with both of their work schedules, but they

were so pleased with me after the first home visit, that they had asked me to babysit. I based

my second home visit off this experience in their home. It was similar to a home engagement in

that his parents were home at the beginning of the visit but then left after about 20 minutes of

me being there. Hudson was very excited for me to come back into his home to babysit and I

could tell by his energy and enthusiasm. I learned a lot about Hudson and his family’s

interactions with community, family and how they spend their time at home. They focus heavily

on communication, exploring the world, and give him minimal time for electronics which has

been great for him. Since Hudson does not use very much technology at home, he has to find

other ways to stay busy. This has allowed him to develop an immense imagination. Hudson

occupies his time by doing art projects with mom and dad, doing puzzles and other games.

Hudson’s parents are great about promoting his art work and accomplishments around the
house, which gives Hudson the confidence and interest to continue to make those. Not only

does Hudson explore books at home, but since Second Street is a Reggio-Emelia approach

school, 90% of the day is for free exploration with books, art, blocks, etc. This means, Hudson

has ample time both at home and at school to explore literacy and language. Something we do

at school is when someone wants to save something they have built, we have saving cards for

them to put on their structures. At the beginning of the year, the children mostly used their

picture cards by recognizing their face but as the year progressed, they started to use their

name cards and recognizes the letters in their name. Hudson has been great at starting to

recognize his name. I think Hudson’s parents work with him at home and name recognition

which has shown and payed off at school.

Section C. Child Literacy Kidwatching Assessment (Classroom and/or Family Interaction and

Home engagement #2)

Since Hudson is only 3 years old, he has not been exposed to much writing. He has

grown so much this year by starting to recognize the letters in his name which we have been

working on a lot through transitions. Besides this, he is able to hold a book properly, follow a

book and answer questions, and come up with detailed story that he enjoys sharing with me,

Tamara and Gretchen. The first Kidwatching activity I chose to do was a book handling activity.

When I first started the activity with Hudson, I handed him a book upside down with the back

cover facing him to see if he knew how to properly hold a book. He immediately turned the

book around to the front cover and flipped it so it was no longer upside down. I chose the book

When Sophie Gets Angry, Really Really Angry, because we had read it as a class before and I

wanted to see if he remembered what it was about. Hudson has a great memory and loves to
memorize books so he was able to describe to me how she was feeling in the book since our

focus for the week was on emotions and feelings. Once we started reading together, Hudson

could point out her facial expressions and describe what was making her angry.

The second activity I chose to do was from my Community Resource Map. To recap, for

my community resource map, I looked at two close by resources that I found would be very

beneficial for a field trip or for the families in my classroom to explore. The one I chose to focus

on for my Kidwatching activity on was Himmel Park. My case study family goes to all the time

both after school and on the weekends, which made me want to learn more about it as a

resource for the community that is my Rainbow classroom at Second Street Children’s School.

Starting with Himmel Park, it is a park east of Second Street that many families at my school

love to take their children to. Not only is Himmel Park a park, but I learned through my

interview that “there is a library, tennis courts, soccer fields, a playground, basketball courts, a

workout station, and a swimming pool.” All of which make great resources for such a

community. Tucson parks and recreation became a recognized department in November of

1961. Not only is Himmel park a great resource for children but it is also a great resource for

their families, providing many different places for enjoyment. Our school does not do fieldtrips

since the children, especially in my class are so young, but if we did I think this would be a great

place for one. Since our school does not do fieldtrips, I thought it would be fun to ask Hudson’s

parents at my second visit, what they do with him at Himmel Park. They shared with me that he

loves to play soccer with dad and that he uses the swimming pool there for lessons each

Sunday. I had Hudson describe to me at school his favorite thing to do at Himmel Park and he

told me the swim lessons are his favorite.

 I have learned so much about Kidwatching and literacy. I have learned how important it

is to develop a strong relationship with your students and their families. I think one of my best

qualities as a future educator is how great of a relationship I have built with my students and

their families. I have babysat for two of my students, had many great conversations during drop

off and pick up, and have learned so much about my children and where they have come from,

especially my case study child. It helps that I am very friendly and outgoing but I will cherish the

relationships I have made at SSCS. I think the most important part in the beginning of each

school year is to get to know your students and their families to set the tone for the school year

and to make them feel like they can talk to you about anything.

Section D. Using Literacy Observation and Data to Inform Instruction

For my activity, I have decided to go off my mentor teacher, Tamara’s idea and add an

extension to it. From the beginning of the year until now, Tamara has taken each child aside

and had them draw a portrait of themselves. From then until now, their pictures have vastly

improved. In the beginning of the year they would just scribble, but now they are starting to

form a face with eyes and a mouth. I was going to have Hudson draw himself with his family

and have him dictate to me what he drew.

Rationale

From knowing Hudson and how creative he is, I thought this activity would be great for

him to express himself without much direction. I wanted his family portrait to be very open-

ended, not showing him any examples of how a face looks, so he can use his imagination and

not be limited. I think Hudson creating this work of art and verbalizing it to me will encourage

his literacy development. Although Hudson does not know how to write yet, he is able to
describe his pictures to me in great detail, and I want him to know that whatever he shares with

me is important and will be noted. I hope this activity will spark Hudson’s interest in writing for

himself once he is old enough to.

Goals of the Activity

My goal for this activity is to give Hudson an interest in drawing and dictating, and to

see how far he has grown since the beginning of the year with his hand holding skills and

creativity. I hope to encourage Hudson by asking him about his picture and showing an interest.

Resources/ Materials

The only materials I need for this activity are paper and markers/paint/pastels; really

anything he wants to use to create his art work. Usually, when Tamara does this with them, she

has them use a black marker but I wanted to incorporate color into their work of art.

Structures/Plan to Implement

To complete this activity, I will invite Hudson over to the round table and introduce to

him what I want him to draw. I will do it during free choice inside in the morning when Hudson

has plenty of time for free play, and this activity will only take about 5-10 minutes. I will give

Hudson all the time he needs, not rushing him and wait until he shows me he is done drawing

before I will ask him about his piece. After I invite Hudson over and he draws, I will ask him

about what he drew before I let him go back to free play.