Observations- help teachers to plan

When children are in care daycare,pre-school,provider mother in other words formal childcare the teachers are required to record children's work. This is done in several ways for example - keeping samples of the child's work paintings,writings,recording conversations ,taking pictures of a structure that the child makes for example in the block area and also writing observations.
An observation is : just looking at a behavior that a child is displaying and writing it down as it is happening without disrupting the child . Observations must be objective ,only writing what you see .

Usually this behavior is  initiated by the child. This information  is   can  be used  in several ways:

1. To individualize for the child ,seeing  where the child's strength  are and what she needs help in
2. If a teacher has a concern and need to discuss it with the parent (parent teacher conference ) she will use the data that she has collected to demonstrate why she has a concern
3. If the child needs an evaluation  for special services the data will be referred to as well
4. Helps with planning for the class 
5. Helps when teachers have team meetings
6. To determine developmental delays

These  are just a few ways that  observations may be used.

One of the special needs that may come up is the need for occupational therapy . This was posted a while back. Remember that you can look at older post .

As a parent  arming yourself with knowledge about developmental mile stones will give you a heads up.