Documentation: Making Assessment Visible

Rendi, the speech/language therapist at the Green River Child Development Center, routinely observed her preschool children in their classroom settings. She recorded the data from these observations in her "little blue book." When it was time to review a child's progress toward IEP goals, Rendi referred to the little blue book for evidence. When Rendi learned about the Reggio Emilia approach to documentation of children's learning, she decided to "free the data from the little blue book" and make it visible on documentation panels hung in the children's classrooms. Soon the children, their parents, and their teachers supplemented the usual assessment procedures in new ways that made growth and development more visible.