Head Start Case Study

Head Start The risk factors that we discussed in class were noticeable in this particular room. The social interaction factor was probably the biggest one that I saw. There were eight children in the room three of them had low to about average social skills and the others talked with some to very few words were spoken. This was the biggest risk factor that I saw that was noticeable as soon as I finished my first day. The children that could talk seemed to interact a little more, but did not know how to socially know when someone was not pleased which usually resulted in someone biting, or screaming. These risk factors of not knowing how to socially interact is hard for them during the school day, and even more challenging when they leave the center. My cooperating teacher would say to out loud that “Oh, it looks like _____ was left in front of the t.v. all weekend,” and things that I didn’t like were appropriate for her to say in front of me or out loud. Yes, some of these children have a rough home life but, maybe of basically saying that the child/children aren’t getting attention at home. An idea of what she could do so that the children receives some attention would be to give the families a project or something they can do together and bring back on Monday. In class we talked about the characteristics of learning disabilities were individuals have language disorders, metacognitive deficits, social/emotional problems, attentions problems and many others. …show more content…
Another category that we talked about was emotional/behavioral disorders and those characteristics are inappropriate behaviors, difficulty reading social cues, adaptive behavior and needs rewards and consequences used systematically. I was told by the cooperating teacher that I was volunteering for that many of the children in her classroom had some characteristics of both learning disabilities and EBD. I also noticed this specific behaviors upon observation. I don’t think that these children should be identified with either of these two categories just yet since most of them were not even thirty months old yet. This particular place was different from the other Head Start facilities that I have been into and volunteered in before. The rooms did not have doors so you could hear the other children that were on the other side of the hallway which made some days more chaotic because of all the noise that was being made. This particular room that I was placed in did not have as many toys or materials to experiment with. The kids didn’t have very much structure as in having a circle time, or learning anything really. The teachers did not sing songs to the children if they were not a CD and the songs were not the basic ABC’s and such. The room had set rules and consequences for the children to follow and recognize. I would categorize this particular classroom as a semi supportive environment because yes it did have rules and behaviors that were expected, but it was not supportive in the area of learning since most of the day was free play. The instructional strategies that I saw when I was there were very few. The ones that I did see were art, sensory bins, and then free play. The example