Markiesha Gervacio

Child Study
About the Child
For the purpose of this assignment, I will call my child MC. MC has been with this
preschool since she was two years old. She is currently four and is bilingual (Vietnamese and
English). Whenever I ask her to count something, she is always excited to do so. I asked her if
she enjoys counting. MC responded, Yes! I can count really high! However, she will not do
something if she does not want to. She does not like to play in the manipulative area (which
include 3D magnetic shapes and patterning materials).
There are several reasons why I chose my child. I chose her because she comes to school
every day. I thought it would be easier for me to collect information on her if she is there when I
am. Second, she is very outspoken. She says exactly how she feels about someone. Even if it is
to their face. Third, she says that she enjoys school. Lastly, I chose her because she comes up to
me every day to talk. Hopefully, it will be a lot easier to gather information on a student that
enjoys conversing with me.

Relational Understanding & Mathematical Proficiency

Specific Observations: MC was playing the board game Chutes and Ladders
with me. She spun the spinner and it landed on the number three. I asked her what number the
spinner landed on and she answered quickly, Three! She then picked up her piece and just
moved it to the number three on the game board. She did not touch each space between one and
three. I then spun the spinner and it landed on the number six. MC exclaimed, Six! Here I will
move six for you. She picked up my game piece and moved it one space, she said, One. She

skipped two spaces and said, Two. Next, she counted, Three, four, as the game piece touched
one space. She then moved one more space and said, Five, six. My turn!
A second observation I made relating to MCs relational thinking and mathematical
proficiency was when I asked her to count a collection of flowers. The flowers she collected
were floating in water and were scattered. I commented, Wow, look at all your flowers. I
wonder how many there are? She pointed to one flower and started to count, One, two, three..
(continues counting)...eleven, twelve, twenty, fourteen, sixteen. Sixteen! As counted, she
pointed to two flowers and counted, three. In addition, she counted four flowers twice. The
flowers were floating in various directions when she touched each flower. I then picked up four
flowers off the ground. I asked MC, I wonder who has more flowers. Me or you? MC glanced
at my flowers and back at hers. She didnt say anything for a minute. Then she said in a loud
voice, I have way more than you!
Mathematical Proficiency: From this evidence, I can come to the conclusion that
she recognizes the written number three and six. She was able to quickly name the
written number before her. In addition, she is able to verbally count up to the number
twelve while she was counting her flowers. She did not stutter and knew the order of numbers
up to twelve. After twelve she started counting out of order. However, she showed a lack of
the conceptual understanding of one-to-one correspondence. While she was
counting and moving the game piece according to her counting, she assigned one space two
numbers and continued to assign another space two numbers. While she was counting the
flowers, she gave numerous flowers more than one number name.
Relational Thinking: When observing MCs relational thinking, from this evidence, I
can see that she has the ability to subitize. MC was able to tell me which collection of

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flowers had more than the other, without having to count each collection. A second piece of
evidence that MC has relational thinking is displaying knowledge of beginning
understandings of the concepts of number and counting. When asked to count
how many spaces she was supposed to move during the board game activity, she was able to
count accordingly. She knew that 1 came first, next 2, after is 3........all the way up to 6. Lastly, I
can also come to the conclusion that she can associate a number word with a
quantity. When MC was asked, Wow, look at all your flowers. I wonder how many there
are?, she just started to count the flowers.

Diagnostic Interview
Materials:
I plan on using my ShowMe app on my Ipad to record the diagnostic interview. I am also
planning on having some pictures of items on my Ipad for the student to count. I will have other
common materials for the student to count as well. Such as leaves, blocks, rocks or anything
lying near us that is countable.
Plan:
Go up to student when they are alone, instead of having them totally separated from the

group.
Ask her if she wants to play a special counting game with me.

Ask her, How high do you think you can count? Can you count to a hundred?? Record

her counting, if possible.

Have her count whatever number of items I decide to put in front of her. Record her

counting.
Record if she has one-to-one correspondence.
Find materials of different colors and shapes. Ask her, How many (insert color of object)

squares are there?

Observe if she is able to separate the colors or shapes, depending on what I ask her to

count. Record her counting.

Ask her, Can I start from this object and count? Or do I have to start at this one? Point

to object she started at to count. Record her answer.

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 If she says it does not matter where you start counting, ask why.
If she says it does matter where you start counting, ask why.

If there she does not show interest during most of the interview, try to play a board game
with her instead.
Record her one-to-one correspondence as she moves the game piece.
Record whether she is able to recognize written numbers on the game spinner.
Record how high she can accurately count
Ask her to count each number on the Chutes and Ladders game (It goes from 1-100 on
the board game).

Diagnostic Interview Results

For my diagnostic interview I asked my child to count a bunch of different manipulatives.
First, I asked her how high she was able to count. At first, she did not say anything because she
was preoccupied with other activities that the students were doing in the classroom. I then took
out 15 different colored pens and told her, Wow, look at all my pens. I wonder how many I
have? She replied, Oh, I know. You have one black pen, one blue pen, one, blue pen... She
continued to say, one (color of pen) pen for each pen that was in front of her. She picked up the
black pen twice. As she counted each pen, she did not move it to the side, she just pointed to it.
From this, I can say that she does not have one-to-one correspondence because she counted one
pen twice. However, I guessed that she was distracted by all the different colors because she did
not display early number counting skills (Walle, Karp & Bay-Williams, 2013, p. 130).
In order to address this, I asked her to count a different set of manipulatives. I placed 20
small blocks in front of her and asked her, I wonder how many blocks I have? She then
gathered all the blocks together with two arms. Next, she pointed to one block and said, One,
two, three.....ten, eleven, thirteen, sixteen, twenty one. As she pointed to each block, she
counted one block twice. After she was done counting I asked her how many blocks there were
and she responded, I dont know. Then she started to count the blocks over again. From this

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observation I can say that she does not have one-to-one correspondence because she counted
several items more than once. In addition, she does not display the knowledge of cardinality
because when I asked her how many blocks there were, she had to count it all over again instead
of giving me the last number that she counted.

Instructional Plan
An instructional plan that I could use, in order to help my child with her one-to-one
correspondence, is to play board games. I would introduce her to more board games and play
different types of board games to make it more interesting. For example, I could play the board
game Chutes and Ladders with her. I would first have her move her own game piece on the
board. If she skips spaces, I will guide her hand back and count with her as I touch each space.
When it is my turn on the game, I will have her count the spaces my game piece would move on.
I will have to make sure I guide her hand as she move the game piece in order for her to practice
one-to-one correspondence.
The second instructional plan I could implement is the activity Fill the Tower (Walle,
Karp, Bay-Williams, 2013, p. 132). In this activity, students are given a board game with four
towers. Each column contains twelve squares. The students take turns rolling a die and picking
up the given number of counters. They place their counters onto the towers. This will help my
childs early counting skills. If I wanted the students to explore with numbers higher than six, I
could use a spinner that has numbers 1-10 on it. The students would then spin the spinner instead
of rolling a die.
The third instructional plan I could apply is the activity Number Tubs (Walle, Karp,
Bay-Williams, 2013, p. 133). This activity will help with my childs written numeral recognition.

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In the Number Tubs game, a child is given four to six closed tubs. Each tub contains a different
number of counters. The teacher will then ask the student to find a certain number of counters.
This instructional plan will help with my childs written numeral recognition because she will be
able to see and feel how many counters correspond to a certain number.
The last instruction plan I have is to expose my child to more counting situations
throughout the school day. One way I could make counting a daily routine is to have a blank
calendar at the start of each month. Every morning I will have all the students sit together and
count how many days there are up until the current date. For example, if today is December 20 I
would have all the students count, as I point to each number, up to the number 19. Then I would
ask students, What comes after 19? Then I would place the current date, 20, into the next slot.
Encouraging students to count up to the current date on a daily basis is good practice. This
instructional plan also assists students with their written numeral recognition. Students will be
able to see each number on the calendar as we count all together.

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