PEPSI Screening 1

PEPSI Screening

Alejandra Baca

EDU 220

College of Southern Nevada

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Biography:

August is seven years old; she is the youngest of five children. August has always been a

curious child, before going to school August wanted to learn about new things and would ask

many questions. To help with her curiosity our parents would buy her books, books about the

planets, stars, bugs, and cells. We would read her books almost every night about things that

fascinated her. She was always curious to learn about new things, until the pandemic hit. The

first year of the pandemic was the same year August started kindergarten. She was so

disappointed to hear that she would not be attending school in person, and it was all going to be

online. Our mother is a stay-at-home mom who only has a middle school education, when the

pandemic started, she was worried for her children because she didn’t know how to homeschool

kids. Our mother struggled a lot and was very frustrated with how online school was going

because she was not computer savvy, nor did she understand the material that was being given to

her older high school daughters (14 years old and 17 years old). She was overwhelmed and

would always have to call me, the eldest daughter (25 years old) to help her write emails and

help my younger sisters with their schoolwork. August struggled in school, she did not like

sitting online the entire school day and not being able to talk to the other kids on zoom. She

became uninterested in learning and didn’t want to attend school half the time. During the same

school year August had about three different teachers due to lack of support during that time and

each teacher had a set of new rules and expectations for the students. August and my mother

were very frustrated. August was very good at math but performed poorly in reading and writing

because she was uninterested in those subjects. August then became less curious about things in

life. She became an afraid child because of the pandemic. She didn’t want to go outside because

she was afraid of the virus, so she stayed inside and played video games during her free time
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rather than asking us to read her books. Now August is in first grade, and attends school in

person now, but she is still struggling with her reading skills and has trouble listening and

following directions. Her parents are worried that she may have ADHD. August is very talkative

at school and at home she is constantly interrupting others and has trouble waiting for her turn to

talk. Our parents are very aware of her struggles and want to hold her back a year instead of

letting her go on to the next year.

Developmental areas:

Physical Development

August is an active child. She enjoys swimming, jump roping as well as riding her

scooter. In correspondent to the article written by Wendy Wisner, August is reaching milestones

for her age. Her motor skilled are refined and she can write her name and use scissors properly.

According to MD-health August is about the same as the average for weight and height. She is

measuring at 46 inches and weighs 50 pounds. MD-Health includes information for parents,

there are height and weight charts available to use as a tool to evaluate how kids are developing.

(www.md-health.com) Although she is active, she does spend a lot of time inside playing video

games and watching tv. August would rather stay inside and play video games by herself than go

outside and play alone. She has the TV on all night while she sleeps because she’s afraid of the

dark and uses the TV as a night light. When she wakes up in the morning before school, she will

watch TV while she gets dressed and while she eats breakfast. It is recommended that children

her age have screen time from 90-120 mins a day from The Confidence. August exceeds those

suggested times by 3-fold. As I spent time with August, I asked her why she liked playing games

and watching tv, she told me she gets bored easily and it helps with the boredom.

Emotional Development
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August usually said what was on her mind when I spent time with her. She is usually very

chatty with people. I noticed a few times I picked her up from school she was not as chatty as

usually. It concerned me because she is generally a happy kid. After talking with her about her

day she had told me that some of her classmates did not like her, and it made her feel sad that

they didn’t want to hang out with her. In Chapter three of our textbook, it states “Aspects of

children’s developments will be strongly influenced by experiences at home, at school and with

peers.” (Slavin 56). I noticed after this talk her self esteem was affected by what her classmates

said to her. She started to judge her abilities in making friends. August has a guilty conscious.

One day when we were spending time together, she accidentally spilt a small amount of her

drink in our mom’s car. She cried immediately because she knew we weren’t supposed to have

open drinks in her car, but I reassured her it was to clean before mom noticed. I cleaned the mess

and told her, she didn’t need to cry and that I wasn’t going to tell mom because there wasn’t a

stain in the car. As soon as we went home, she apologized our mom for spilling water in the car.

As stated in 7-Year-Old Developmental Milestones-What to Expect “At this stage, parents need

to guide their children to self-regulate their emotions.” August felt very guilty in that moment

even after I reassured her it was okay. She wanted validation from our mom that it was okay. At

this age she is very emotional and can get upset and frustrated very easily. When I took her on

my errands to the store, she was very upset that I would not let her buy her a something from the

check stand aisle and threw a tantrum in the store, so I had to leave my things there and go sit in

the car with her while she calmed down. I told her that I know she was upset about not getting

something from the store, but when we spend our money on thing, we must make sure we love it

before we purchased it rather than pick something up quickly just because we didn’t get

anything. She understood completely and had empathy for me apologizing for acting like that in
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the store. According to The Process of a Child’s Emotional Development “A child’s emotional

development makes them aware of the origin and development of their emotions.” August can be

very mature in her emotional development even when she has bad days, if she has help

understanding her emotions, she can sometimes understand the emotions of those she has

affected.

Philosophical Development

In accordance with Teaching Respect for Self and Others the philosophical development

could relate to an internal sense of right and wrongdoing. As stated before, August can be very

guilty when she has done something wrong to the point where she will cry because she knows it

was bad or wrong. August is one to intentionally not hear or ignore instructions simply because

she doesn’t want to be told what to do. She knows what she is doing is wrong by not listening to

what our parents are saying to her, but she will still do it. August wants to be in control of what

she wants to do, when she does something as well as how she does things. I think it’s because

my parents don’t really have a structure built for her and she can pretty much do whatever she

wants whenever. Some examples of this are if she doesn’t want to eat dinner she doesn’t have to,

or if she would rather eat something else for dinner my parents will make it for her even though

they’ve already made dinner. I don’t think she follows direction or listen to them because of the

lack of structure.

Social Development

August’s social skills are started off relatively slow. She has four older sisters but most of

us are moved out the house already, so most of the time it’s just her and our parents at home.

When she first started school, it was all online and she was using zoom, so she was unable to talk

to other students in her class because for most of the day they had to remain on mute. When she
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finally started school, she was afraid. She was afraid to be close to other students in fear of

getting sick. She was afraid to go to school because she felt it was unsafe. August had trouble

sharing with other students because at home she never had to share anything. According to

Educators See Gaps in Kids’ Emotional Growth Due to Pandemic “Children learn so much those

first years about how to take turns, and about how to talk to your friend, how to say ‘I don’t like

that, in the earliest years of schooling. So, teachers have had to make a more deliberate effort to

stop and recognize things they need to reinforce.” August doesn’t have many friends at school

because she attends school with a few of her cousins and she much rather hang out with them

rather than other kids. I asked her about this, and she said she doesn’t make friends because she’s

afraid they won’t want to be friends with her. When she does not play with her cousins at school

August will participate in solitary play. “Solitary play is play that occurs alone, often with toys

and is independent of what other children are doing.” (Salvin 54) At home August is very chatty

with her parents and when her sisters are there. She mostly talks about the video games. Her

parents don’t see a problem with her playing video games for long periods of time because it

gives them a break from her talking about everything. Social development is important to

children because it can help develop language skills, build self-esteem, strengthen learning sills,

resolve conflicts, and establish positive attitudes according to Social Development in Children.

Intellectual Development

When August was younger, she was very interested in the world around her, but now that

she is a bit older, she doesn’t ask as many questions as she used to. August struggles with

reading and writing the most. She can write her name perfect but doesn’t know her letters well

enough to spell out different word. Since August does not know her letters well enough to

identify them, she struggles with reading because she doesn’t know what sounds match with the
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letters. August then struggles with math because she can’t read the problem to figure out what

the question is asking. My parents help her with her homework by reading all the information to

her but when she returns to class to take test at school, she has difficulties because she doesn’t

have anyone reading the information to her. In math she cannot identify numbers larger than

twenty. She knows how to count fine but when asked how you write fifty-two, she cannot give

you the number. According to page 37 in the textbook Education and Psychology: Theory and

Practice

“Learning to read in the early elementary grades is one of the most important of all

developmental tasks, both because other subjects depend on reading and because our society

school success is so often equated with reading success.” In accordance with Cognitive

Development in 6–7-Year-olds around 7 years old is when children enter Piaget’s concrete

operational period where kids get a better understanding of how to approach problems and

consider different outcomes. August does often think of the outcomes of situations she is put in

and I believe in that area she is a bit advance.

Graph
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PEPSI

Intellectual Development

Social Development

Philosophical Development

Emotional Development

Physical Development

0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Normal for age August's Level

In the figure above it shows where August aligns compared to the average of children in the

same age group.

Recommendations

I learned a lot about my younger sister during this observation period. I also learned that

children develop at different rates when it comes to physical, emotional, philosophical, social,

and intellectual development. I have recommended to my parents that August should be in

tutoring to help her learn how to read. She is a smart girl and is being held back due to her

difficulties with reading. My parents took my advice and have enrolled her into tutoring. I also

recommended to them that they limit her screen time and to not let her take her tablet when

going out to stores or restaurants and instead have conversations with her in order to understand

her better. The screen time limiting is going to be hard on August and my parents because they

both rely on the screen to keep August calm. August is doing well in her physical and emotional

development, so I don’t recommend anything changing there.

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As for her teacher I recommend they assist her a bit more with tests and have patients

while she catches up with her peers in reading. August needs all the encouragement she can get

and if her teachers help her with reading the math problems during test and clarify the

instructions rather than read it straight from the page, I’m sure August will have no problem in

math. Her teachers should encourage other students to be kind to others this way August won’t

be so afraid of her peers. I think if the teacher did small group learning it could help with making

more friends. August is a smart girl and just needs a little push from both her teachers and

parents to help her achieve her dreams and reassure her its okay to not be at the same level as

your peers but as long and if you are doing your very best you will catch up with them in no

time.
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References

Chart of height and weight for children. MD. (2018, August 6). Retrieved February 27,

2022, from https://www.md-health.com/Weight-Chart-For-Kids.html

Screen Time Limits by Age: Guidelines and Suggestions. The Confidence (2021, April

25). Retrieved February 15, 2022, from Screen Time Limits by Age: Guidelines and Suggestions

(theconfidencemag.com)

Amy Morin, L.C.S.W., Wisner, W (2022 February 3). 7-year-old Child Development

Milestones. Verywell Family. Retrieved February 20,2022 from Development Milestones for

Your 7-Year-Old Child (verywellfamily.com)

Evie Blad (2022 February 24). Educators See Gaps in Kids’ Emotional Growth Due to

Pandemic. Retrieved February 27, 2022 from Educators See Gaps in Kids' Emotional Growth

Due to Pandemic (edweek.org)

Social Development in Children. (2020 May 13). Retrieved February 20,2022 from

Social Development in Children | SCAN Families

Ellsworth, J. A. (1999). Teaching Respect for self and others. 7th Year. Retrieved

February 28, 2022, from

https://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jde7/ese504/class/pepsi/PEPSIObserv/year7.html

-, A. N., By, -, Nairhttp://parenting.firstcry.com, A., & Nair, A. (2021, January 20).

Developmental milestones for 7-Year-Old child. FirstCry Parenting. Retrieved February 20,

2022, from https://parenting.firstcry.com/articles/7-year-old-developmental-milestone-what-to-

expect/

Slavin, R. E. (2018). Educational psychology: Theory and practice. Pearson.

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Cognitive development in 6–7-year-olds. Scholastic. (n.d.). Retrieved February 20, 2022,

from https://www.scholastic.com/parents/family-life/creativity-and-critical-

thinking/development-milestones/cognitive-development-6-7-year-olds.html

The process of a child's emotional development. Exploring your mind. (2020, June 6).

Retrieved February 20, 2022, from https://exploringyourmind.com/process-childs-emotional-

development/