Watching the Babies - The Why, What, and How of Observation as Assessment in Infant and Toddler Care

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by dhado

Observation as assessment in infant and toddler care helps teachers build long-term knowledge of children’s development and strengthen teacher-child relationships. The text explains why systematic observation, screening, and criterion-based strategies are needed, especially under accreditation requirements such as those from NAEYC. It highlights benefits like reducing missed information, gathering data over time and across settings, and using authentic assessment through natural play.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages7

Reading Time18 min

AccessFree to download

Why Observation as Assessment with Infants and Toddlers

Benefits of a systematic approach

Observation as authentic assessment

Watching the Babies: The Why, What, and How of Observation as Assessment in Infant and Toddler Care Observation is a useful tool, even in infant and toddler classrooms. Douglas D. Bell Jr. Applied correctly, observation and assessment can help lay a founda tion for a successful education throughout life. You are entering a childcare center during the break time of a few of the infant and toddler careteachers. You overhear their conversation about their children. One teacher says, “I was watching Julia the other day. She just seems to keep banging the toys. I wonder when she will start using them right.” Another teacher says,“When I put out the soft blocks the toddlers just kick them around. I hope they don’t break them. I wonder why they keep doing that.” Just then a third teacher enters the room and seems exasperated. She interruptsand says, “I just left the director’s office and she says that everyone in the building had to start assessing their children because of the accreditation requirement.”“Even we infant and toddler teachers have to assess the children, can you believe that?” The first and second teacher state that they already know their children well enough, they don’t need assessments. This scenario is becoming more of a reality in many programs. As appropriate practices are researched and policies change, teachers and caregivers of the youngest children (referred to as careteachers for this article) find themselves in the middle of the assessment challenge. Many early childhood programs and teachers struggle with implementing observation and assessment practices. With increasing demands of families and administra tion, the careteacher’s plate can be very full. However, appropriate practices suggest that an ongoing assessment system should be implemented for all children in-group care settings (Bredekamp & Rosegrant, 1992; Copple & Bredekamp, 2009) . Accreditation criteria from the National Association for the Education of Young Children or NAEYC (2006) require a systematic and authentic assessment program be implemented for all children. This system should include observation, screening, and criterion based strategies. Many schools are implementing these practices for their preschool programs but infant and toddler programs can benefit from them as well. This article will briefly address the why, what, and how of observation as assessment with infants and toddlers. Why Observation as Assessment with Infants and Toddlers Infant and toddler careteachers are able to meet children’s needs because they know them well. Much like mothers, careteachers have watched the babies and gained a deeper understanding of who they are. This observation helps to create a deeper knowledge of the child’s development and strengthens the relationship with the teacher (Jablon, Dombro, & Dichtelmiller, 2007) . This deeper understanding of the infant and toddler development is very important in order to provide appropriate programs including the environment (Dichtelmiller & Ensler, 2004). Utilizing systematic and formal techniques of recording information helps to ensure a better match of experiences and the likelihood of developmental progress (Forman & Hall, 2005; Martin, 2004; Morrison, 2009). Observation can be used to help assess developmental skills and milestones and be utilized to gather data as part of developmental screening. The benefit of using a systematic and formal approach to observation as assessment of infants and toddlers is mainly to reduce the likelihood of missing information (Early Head Start National Resource Center, 2000) and 4 Vol 45, No 1, 2017 Dimensions of Early Childhood Watching the Babies: The Why, What, and How of Observation as Assessment in Infant and Toddler Care paint a more comprehensive picture of their development. Infant and toddler careteachers are extremely busy people. They have to meet a great number of demands, often at the same time. Some babies are hungry, others need

FAQs

How does authentic assessment work in this context?

Authentic assessment gathers information from activities children naturally engage in, using direct observation during everyday play rather than setting up special tasks.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by dhado