Anecdotal Record:

Singing and Dancing (Birth-2 Field Experience)

Date of Observation:
(Psuedonyms)

7th of May, 2015

Setting: Indoor/ Classroom

Child's First Name: Lacey and Charlee

Age (Years and Months): 1 year, 3 months and 1 year, 1 month

Observation

Interpretation

Recently the children were given a new Playschool CD to listen to

Mean Length of
during the day whilst they play. The nursery rhymes have corresponding
Utterance
actions and each day the educators in the room have been singing to and
with the children and encouraging them to join in by singing and dancing.

Phonology

Lacey and Charlee demonstrated a particular interest in three of the songs

on the playlist; Old Macdonald had a farm, If youre happy and you
know it and The wheels on the bus go round and round.
Lacey sung along to the lyrics ee ii ee ii oh in Old Macdonald had a
farm by saying ah yah ah yah. Lacey nodded her head and clapped her
hands to dance along to the music. Charlee, who had been sitting at the
activity table noticed Lacey dancing on the mat and stood up to join her.
1 statement
She swung her arms in a forward and backward motion and began
clapping her hands and transferring her weight from one foot to another 4 morphemes
to stomp her feet.
- Deleting the
When If youre happy and you know it began playing Charlee began
clapping her hands and swing her arms up in the air. Lacey watched her 1 statement
1 morpheme
do so and began clapping her hands too. Lacey showed her familiarity
with the song by predicting the following words upon completion of the
first verse; aaaay!. As the word Hooray was sung, the girls raised their
hands up, singing and smiling.
1 statement
1 morpheme
As the words round and round were sung in the Wheels on the bus
song, Lacey began turning around in a circle moving her hips in a
sideward motion saying awow!. Charlee began to imitate Laceys
actions saying da ba!

unstressed
syllables in a
multisyllable word

- Replacing liquid
sounds with glides
and deleting the
final consonant
sound of a word

MLU: 2

Links to Theory:
According to Gardner (1993) musical intelligence is often the first intelligence to emerge in young children.
Gardner believes that including music in learning experiences not only builds upon childrens musical interests
and abilities, but it can simultaneously enhance their linguistic and literacy development. The educators in
Laceys room facilitated daily musical experiences, which enabled her to enhance her overall language skills
including her vocabulary, pronunciation of words, comprehension of language and understanding of sentence
patterns (Paquette, 2008).

Analysis:
From evidence in this observation and according to Browns (1973) Stages of Language Maturation Laceys
mean length of utterances is approximately a 2. For a child of her age this is an appropriate level to be in as the
range is between 1.5 and 2.0. Lacey utilises free morphemes in her statement, although as she increases her
capacity to learn and utilise grammatical structures Lacey will develop the ability to use and attach bound
morphemes to free morphemes in order to convey grammatical concepts (Berk, 2013). Whilst Lacey draws
upon a variety of phonological strategies in order to simplify the pronunciation of words (Ingram, 1986), she is
engaging with the music in order to practice and reinforce consonants such as the r phoneme when the lyrics
round and round are sung in the The Wheels on the Bus song. She is also developing her ability to
comprehend the lyrics in order to recall and produce them. For example she demonstrates her understanding of
the word hooray by raising her hands excitedly in the air, she then is draws on phonological strategies where
she deletes the unstressed syllable in order to say the word aaay (Ingram, 1986).
Links to Curriculum/Learning Frameworks:
Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity Children feel safe, secure and supported:
-

Establish and maintain respectful, trusting relationships with other children and educators
Initiate interactions and conversations with trusted educators
Initiate and join in play

Children learn to interact in relation to others with care, empathy and respect:
-

Show interest in other children and being part of a group

Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of wellbeing

Children become strong in their social and emotional wellbeing:
-

Share humour, happiness and satisfaction

Celebrate their own achievements and those of others

Children take increasing responsibility for their own health and physical wellbeing:
-

Respond through movement to traditional and contemporary music, dance and storytelling
Demonstrate spatial awareness and orient themselves, moving around and through their environments
confidently and safely

Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners

Children transfer and adapt what they have learned from one context to another:
-

Develop an ability to mirror, repeat and practice the actions of others, either immediately or later

Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators Children interact verbally and non-verbally with others for a range of purpose:
-

Engage in enjoyable interactions using verbal and non-verbal language

Use language representations from play, music and art to share and project meaning
Show increasing knowledge, understanding and skill in conveying meaning

Ideas for Further Planning:

-

Shared reading experience

Singing songs about literacy and numeracy practices

References:
Berk, L. E. (2013). Child Development (9th ed.). United States of America: Pearson Education, Inc.
Bowen, C. (2011) Browns Stages of Syntactic and Morphological Development. Retrieved 31st of May, 2015,
from http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/index.php?
option=com_content&view=article&id=33:brown&catid=2:uncategorised*Itemid=117
Brown, R. (1973). A first language: The early stages. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Ingram, D. (1986). Phonological acquisition. In M. Barrett (Ed.), The development of language (pp.73-97).
Philadelphia
Paquette, K, R. (2008). Using Music to Supports the Literacy Development of Young English Language
Learners. Early Childhood Education Journal. (36) 227-232. doi: 10.1007/s10643-008-0277-9