Choose one child to observe on a typical day in your school-age program. What example of each communication skill do you see and hear the child use in the program? How does the environment help or hinder the child from communicating? Use the chart below to record your observations.

What I saw… How the environment helped or hindered the child’s communication experiences…
Listening
Jake listened as Adrian explained how to build the model plans.
It was pretty loud in that area, so I think Jake and a few others missed some important steps. They had a lot of questions later. Maybe we could use photos of how to build the models, or we could move it to a quieter area?
Speaking
Jake and Sierra worked together on their model planes. Jake tried explaining how he thought the pieces fit together. Sierra disagreed with him, so he had to really work hard to convince her about his ideas.
The environment helped because the table was big enough for both of them to work on the model at the same time, and there were enough materials for Jake and Sierra to both try to show each other their ideas.
Reading
There weren’t many opportunities for reading during my observation. I did see him look at the box for the model airplane to try to find directions, but there weren’t any available.
The environment didn’t make it easy for Jake to read during this time. He wanted directions but couldn’t find them. Maybe he could have looked directions up online if the computers were nearby?
Writing
I didn’t see any writing during this observation. Jake was busy building, so there weren’t many opportunities.
I guess maybe Jake could have used writing to make a plan about building the model? If sketch paper and pencils were available, maybe he and Sierra could have drawn or written their ideas. If the computer were available, maybe he could have typed his question into a search engine.