If There is No Product to Prove a Child Understands a Concept, How Do You Know They're Learning?

Children, especially young children, need hands-on, experience based learning.??

Sometimes this form of learning creates a product that can be displayed, or sent home, but often, it does not.

The question then becomes, “If there is no product to prove a child understands a concept, how do you know they're learning?”

The short answer:? Observation, conversation, and documentation.

Here’s an example.

It’s a hot, sunny day.? The preschool teachers have brought buckets of water and paint brushes outside for the children to “paint” the sidewalk or building.

Suzy happily paints a sun on the sidewalk.? Her friend says something to her, and she turns away from her work for a minute to talk.? When she looks back, she exclaims, “My sun is disappearing!”

Her teacher comes over, looks, and asks, “Why do you think it is disappearing?”? She listens to Suzy’s thoughts on evaporation, writes them down on the notepad she carries with her, talks with Suzy about evaporation, and makes a note to add more evaporation experiments and opportunities to the curriculum for the next few weeks.

As the teacher continues to walk around and observe her students, she sees that Henry has “painted” several letters from his name and a few letter-like squiggles.? Using her iPad, she snaps a quick photo before the letters evaporate.??

She asks Henry what he’s working on.? He says, “I was writing ‘Happy Birthday’ for my mom.”

“Is it her birthday today?” she asks.

“No, but it will be soon,” he says.? “I was practicing ‘cause I want to make her a card.”

“Do you want to work on that when we go back inside?”

“Yes. Do we have green paper?? It’s her favorite color.”

“I think we do,” the teacher replied.? “Can you tell me the letters you wrote?”

The teacher notes that Henry understands that print has meaning, which letters he can write and correctly identify, that he puts letter names to his letter-like squiggles (as opposed to numbers, shapes, etc.).

When they get inside the teacher notes that Henry correctly chooses and identifies a green piece of paper.? She asks him, “Do you want me to write the letters for Happy Birthday on a different piece of paper, so you can copy them?? Or do you want to try writing it all by yourself?”

“Can you write it?” he asks.? As the teacher begins writing it, he says, “Hey, that’s an H like in my name.”

“That’s right! Happy and Henry start the same.? They both start with the /h/ sound. Do you know any more of these letters or the sounds they make?” replies the teacher.? She notes the letters he correctly identifies.

These two very different interactions show how a teacher can assess and document what and how their students are learning without needing some kind of a permanent, physical product to assess.? By observing what the students are doing, how they’re doing it, talking to them about it,? and documenting it, learning and assessment can happen in a very organic way.