Abigail Newburger

"Take my picture, Ms. Jones! Take my picture!" Kids love to have their pictures taken. And photos can be an important tool for early childhood educators. While children may initially pose for pictures, if you take them often, the kids will forget you are taking them. Then you can get beautiful, natural photographs. If you have a digital camera, you don't need to print the pictures. You can view them directly on the computer. Then the only major cost to your program is the camera.

Supervisors ask teaching staff to keep regular notes about children. Photos can be a part of your note-taking. They can provide information, enhance written notes, and help teach you about your students. A series of photos can help you answer questions about a child, such as "Is the child consistently left-handed?" A picture is worth a thousand words. This can be especially true in a busy preschool classroom.

Analyzing photos is like looking for clues to help solve a mystery. Start by looking at a photo of a child and asking questions about what you see. Here are some things to think about as you look at the photo:

Elizabeth Vaughan

1. Is the child busy? Does it look like he's thinking about what he's doing?

Your answers can provide clues to understanding how engaged and actively involved the child is in his play. If he looks engaged, you may want to watch him to see how long he stays at what he is doing. This can help you decide whether the child can stay on task. Your answers will also help you plan further observations, activities, and ways to work with the child.

Some state learning standards that address Approaches to Learning use "persistence in ability to complete a variety of tasks, activities, projects and experiences" as a benchmark or performance standard. A photo of a child making a symmetrical building can show that the child has achieved these learning goals. A child who completes such construction has shown persistence, completion of a task or activity, and engagement in a project.

2. What hand does the child seem to be using?

You may think you can't tell this from a still photo, but there are clues. If the child is holding something with two hands, the hand on top is usually the dominant hand. Try grabbing something. Because you're more likely to reach and grab with your dominant hand, that hand is more likely to be on top.

If you find that a child is consistently left-handed, it's important to design activities with the proper tools and teaching methods in mind. Children need tools that help them succeed at what they're attempting to do. Left-handed children need left-handed scissors, for example. And left-handed children need the top of the paper they're writing on to be tilted to the right instead of to the left (as it is for a right-handed child).

3. Is the child alone or playing with other children?
One early learning standard involves a child's ability to interact with peers and to form positive peer relationships. If your photo shows a child playing alone, you may want to observe that child in the classroom to see if he frequently plays alone.

Look at this photo of a little boy playing with blocks. Ask the three questions from above. He seems actively involved. He's holding the block in front of his construction and looking at it. He seems to be thinking about where it needs to be placed. Nothing seems to be distracting his attention. His right hand seems dominant right now, as it's above his left hand on the block. He is playing alone.

Now look at what the boy is doing, and ask:

• Is he pretending?
• Is he constructing something? What is the construction like?
• Is he working together with other children?
• What material is he using?
• Are there clues to his developmental stage?

Look again at the photo of the boy with the blocks. We don't know if he's pretending, because we can't hear him talking. It appears he's constructing something. He's working with a number of less-common block shapes (circles and triangles). He appears to have a definite pattern in mind, which we know from looking at what he's already built. Everything he's done on one side of his construction matches what he's done on the other side. He's thus showing an internal understanding of pattern and symmetry, which tells us he's in the "Pattern" developmental stage. Understanding or creating patterns is often a goal listed in state mathematics standards.

Here is another photo for you analyze. Choose one child in this photo and answer the following questions:

• Is s/he busy?
• Which hand is s/he using?
• Is s/he playing alone?
• Is s/he pretending?
• Is s/he constructing?
• What material is s/he using?
• Are you seeing clues to a developmental stage? If so, what are they?
• Do you notice other things in the picture you want to note?

Here are our thoughts about the photo of the girl and the boy:

Little Girl: She seems to have lost her focus for the moment but appears to be actively engaged in what she's doing with the doll. She appears right-handed. Notice how the whole balance of her body is a part of her hand movement. She doesn't seem to be playing with the boy, but there may be someone she's looking at and with whom she's playing. We think she's pretending. Her movements are not involved with placing blocks anywhere and she's making the doll do something. The materials are interesting. There are blocks and what looks like a pretend river with plastic over some blue material. This set-up seems to lend itself to pretend play. Whoever built the block structure knows how to make doorways, bridges, and enclosures. However, the way the little girl is using the structure seems to indicate that she's in the pretending stage of block-building development.

Little Boy: He appears busy and is looking at the dolls he's fingering. He seems right-handed. His right hand and arm are doing something with the doll. He seems to be working alone. His attention is on the dolls instead of the nearby girl, and what he's doing seems unrelated to what the girl is doing. He seems to be pretending. Perhaps he's having one doll talk with the other. He seems uninvolved with construction right now. He seems to be actively involved in some form of pretending that places him in the pretending stage of block play.

It's quite useful and fun to sit back after the children have gone home and look at pictures you have taken. The photos can remind you what the children did during the day and can help you see things in the children that you haven't noticed before. Different staff members looking at the same photo may see different things. That may trigger questions and a search for answers. As you seek more information, you'll continue to learn more about the children, which in turn will make you a wiser and better teacher. Teaching will become more exciting as you continually increase your understanding of the children in your care.

Abigail Newburger has worked with Head Start for the past twenty-seven years as a teacher, home visitor, peer reviewer, and education consultant. She holds two masters degrees in education and has held officer positions in various National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) affiliates, including the Pennsylvania Association for the Education of Young Children and the Mid-Atlantic Region Association for the Education of Young Children. Read an interview with Abigail here.

Elizabeth Vaughan has worked in the early childhood field for over thirty years. She has taught preschool special education in the public schools and has worked with children ages three to six years in child care and university laboratory school settings. She received her PhD from the University of South Florida and currently chairs the teacher education department at Shippensburg University. She is the coauthor of Learning Centers for Child-Centered Classrooms, published by the National Education Association. She is the president of the Pennsylvania Association for the Education of Young Children and serves on the NAEYC Affiliate Council.

Interested in learning more about how digital photography can enhance your teaching of young children? Look for Picture Science: Teaching Young Children with Digital Photography by Carla Hinds coming this spring from Redleaf Press.

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