The Importance Of Self Assessment In Children

I assessed three children with their parents’ permission. Assessment was done through observation of their interaction with me and their environment. They were very comfortable with me as I have been tutoring them for at least six months. A combination of methods helped me gain a deeper and accurate reflection of the child’s developmental progress.
Self-assessment involves children reflecting on their individual learning and development. Children do this as part of their learning process. More often than not, this proves them to be their own critic, assessing what they have done and achieved. Children need time to develop such self-assessment skills. Though it was not easy for the children to self assess themselves at first, over time, they were better able to think about what they did, said or made, and to make decisions about how they might do better next time. I guided them through the process of self-assessment by asking such questions: How did you do that? What did you learn from that? What would you do differently if you were doing it again? What would help you to do better …? As part of the discussion, I provided words and phrases to help 6-year- old Yi Hang and 8-year-old Rehan develop a language which can be used when answering.
Observation involved watching and listening to the child and using the information gathered to have a better understanding of the developmental process. Like conversations, observations can be planned or spontaneous and are best carried out by an adult who knows the children well. Knowing the child relatively well was an advantage for me. Most observations were unplanned and happened during lessons. While spontaneous observations provided me with valuable information, planned observations added more detail about what and how the child was