Assessment of Oral Language Abilities

Observing Children's Social Communication

The sample checklist on page 25 is useful for observing which children use language regularly to meet their needs and which ones do not. As well, you can develop a picture of the main purposes for which individual children use language. Many children's language use is different in a small group than it is in a whole class situation.

Procedures

Use the checklist early in the year and observe every child in your class on more than one occasion.
Continue to use with those children for whom oral language development is an area of concern. As with all the assessment tools in this resource, the checklist that follows does not have to be used with all the children in your class on a continuous basis. Rather, it is intended for use with those children for whom oral language development is an area of particular concern.
Use during Class Meeting/Group Time, Structured Play, Center Time, outdoor play, or any form of co-operative group work to assess an individual's oral communication abilities.
Rotate your observations. One way to make informal observation work without being too intrusive for any one child is to assess three children per day and rotate your observations among them. Assess one child for 5 minutes, switch to the second child for 5 minutes, switch to the third child for 5 minutes, and then return to the first child. Observe each child twice if time permits.
Date the observations, and record the particular setting in which the child was observed such as at a social dramatic play center, a language center, a co-operative group activity, etc. Store the completed checklist in each child's individual folder or portfolio.
A manageable goal for use of this checklist might be to assess each child for whom language development is an area of concern three times each reporting period. This will give you an opportunity to see areas of progress.
Refer to the chart on the following page for examples of children's language in each category of the checklist.
Follow up your observations with appropriate referrals if you feel hearing loss might be a factor in a child's language development or have other concerns of a serious nature. Continue to include such children in activities and strategies that involve oral language but offer them additional encouragement and support.

Language Categories for use with Assessment Checklists and Forms
1. Uses language to communicate preferences, choices, "wants", or needs.
Examples:

Child says "Blocks" instead of pointing when asked what center s/he wishes to work in that day.
Child says to another child "I want to use that car." instead of taking it.
Child says to another child or adult at the art center "I'm going to use the green paper."
Child asks, "Can you get that for me? I can't reach it."

2. Uses language to enter into ongoing play or join an activity.
Examples:

Child says, "I'll be the baby, okay?" after observing children in the social dramatic play center pretending to be a family.
Child says, "Can I play?" Or "Can I have a turn?" when joining children involved in a game or activity.
Child asks, "Are you guys making a bridge? I'll help." as s/he enters the block center.

3. Uses language to plan, develop, or maintain the play or group activity.
Examples:

Child says, "We're out of groceries. We need to go shopping." during social dramatic play in a house center.
Child says, "I know, let's make a door here so cars can go in the garage. This is a garage, eh?"
Child says, "Okay. It's your turn." when working on a mural or playing a game with others.

4. Uses language to resolve or avoid conflicts.
Examples:

Child says, "I don't like it when you call me that." in response to name-calling.
Child says, "I'll trade you. You can have my car if you give me that truck."
Child says, "I was here first. You have to go behind me." to a child trying to push her/him out of the way.

5. Uses language to entertain, describe a past event, or tell or retell a story (may incorporate language from favourite books).
Examples:

Child says to another child during an activity, "I went to my grandma's last night."
In response to the teacher's question about what each child did during Center Time, child says, "I played with Cheryl. We read a book."
Child says, "First we rode on the bus, then we got to the farm, and I saw a pig. A [sic] enormous pig." during the making of an experience chart about a trip to a farm.

6. Uses language to find things out, wonder, or hypothesize.
Examples:

Child says in response to another child or adult, "Why did you do that?" or "What for?"
Child talks to self while playing with a water wheel, "What makes it go?"
Child says in response to an event in a story book, "I bet he's going to get in trouble!"

7. Other literacy behaviours noticed.
Such behaviours include the voluntary use of reading or writing materials provided in a center, as part of a display, etc.
Examples:

Child is in the house center and says "We need to get groceries. I'll make a list." and begins to write a grocery list.
Child in the block center gets a book about castles and says, "Let's make one like this."
Child brings a book to Sharing Time and says, "My auntie got me this. I know how to read it." and proceeds to demonstrate.

Instructional Implications

Strategies in this resource that are useful for strengthening children's abilities to use language to meet their needs in social settings are:

Supporting Oral Language Development within Structured Play (p. 33)
Supported Role Play for Social Problem Solving (p. 36)
Speaking and Listening Opportunities in Creative and Collaborative Work (p. 41)
Language Experience Approach (p. 42)
Class Meeting/Group Time Activities (p. 45).

See also descriptions of the following strategies that support communicative abilities in >English Language Arts: A Curriculum Guide for the Elementary Level (1992):

Conferencing (p. 92)
Contextual Drama (p. 94)
Cooperative Learning (p. 96)
Dramatic Play (p. 102)
Puppetry (p. 118).

Sample Checklist for Observing Children's Social Communication