Wayne County, Michigan

Head Start Directory

Feature: Planning For Children to Ensure Support in all COR Areas - By Krista Surowiec

As educators, we all accept and believe in the holistic development of children; that children’s social, emotional, physical and cognitive development is all equally important to the whole child. In addition, more specific areas of development such as children’s initiative; social relations; creative representation; music and movement; language and literacy; and logic and mathematics are supported and encouraged. The COR assessment tool can be used to ensure that all children are supported in all areas of development.

Focusing on areas with few anecdotes. Teachers can review children’s COR assessments to identify those areas with few anecdotes on children, which may be the result of having few opportunities in the classroom to engage in such behaviors. Teachers can then plan daily routine support strategies by focusing on those areas with few anecdotes. For example, if you have very few anecdotes for COR item Y, “Arranging materials in graduated order,” because you haven’t had much opportunity to observe children experiencing this type of activity, then plan for that opportunity!

Lesson planning ideas. One possible plan could be to add more materials that could be arranged in graduating order based on certain characteristics [size, shade of color, texture]. In addition, a small group time activity could be planned to include the exploration of these materials, while keeping in mind children’s interests. For example, let’s say for a planning time strategy one day you used yarn as your prop. Children stretched the yarn into the area of the room to indicate where they wanted to work and then to describe their work plans. You noticed that children were excited about using the new yarn that you introduced to them.

Based on this observation, you could use yarn during a small group time activity for children to arrange in graduating order [the area where you have few anecdotes]. During this small group time, remember to support children by using some of the support strategies found in Section A.

Have your pen and paper ready to jot down your notes of how children may be arranging the materials in graduating order. Congratulations, you have focused on supporting children in an area of development that was previously not strongly supported nor observed. As a result, you may have even increased the amount of anecdotes that you have written for that COR item!

Using a checklist. An idea for quickly documenting your observations during a small group time like the one stated above is the use of a checklist that could be used to prompt your memory when writing a formal anecdote. When you plan support strategies for children during your daily lesson planning, you can anticipate the types of behaviors that you may observe of children.

With this in mind, take a piece of paper and at the top indicate the date, time, and area in the room of your focused strategy. In addition, indicate a key experience or a few key experiences that you are anticipating might be observed. Then add three columns for (1) the children’s names, [2] a quick check indicating whether the key experience was observed, and [3] another column to capture unique details of the experience with possible notes of children’s language and any other key experiences that children are exercising.

Using the checklist to create formal anecdotes. This checklist could be used to create formal anecdotes because you have all the pieces for the beginning, middle and end of an anecdote [see Section B for an example of how this checklist may be used]. Remember that you are focusing on children’s strengths, so you are using the checklist to quickly identify what children are doing instead of what they are not doing. If children are not engaging in the key experiences that you might have anticipated, that is fine too! The comments column allows you to note any other key experiences in which children are engaging. In addition, the checklist allows you to focus on certain areas that may have not strongly been supported or encouraged before and to look for those such experiences so you are not "all over the place."

Conclusion. There are 58 key experiences, so focusing on one or a few at a time will not be as overwhelming and will be more meaningful when appropriately planning for children. Reviewing children’s COR assessments creates a focus for lesson planning and individualization. In addition, it keeps you on track so that all areas of children’s development are thoughtfully supported.

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Section A: Adult Support Strategies During Small Group Time
The following strategies are drawn from High/Scope as ways to support children during small group time:
move to children’s physical level watch what children do with the materials listen to what children say move from child to child imitate children’s actions	converse with children encourage children to do things for themselves refer children to each other for ideas and help ask questions sparingly

Section B: Example of Using a Checklist to Form Anecdotal Notes

On 11/9, During S.G.T., in the A. A.
"Arranging Materials in Graduated Order"
[using different lengths, color shades of yarn]

Formal Anecdotes
On 11/9, during SGT, in the AA, Kim arranged 3 pieces of yarn from shortest to longest and said, "the snake is getting longer." [Y-2]

On 11/9, during SGT, in the AA, Nadine put a handful of yarn on her head and attempted to keep her head steady so the pieces wouldn’t fall. She told Katherine, "look at my hair!"
[L-2]

On 11/9, during SGT, in the AA, Michael arranged 4 pieces of yarn by the shade of their color. He placed them from left to right [light gray then medium gray then dark gray then black]. [Y-3]

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