Observation Guidelines: Seeing Intelligence in Children's Daily Behavior

Oral Language Skills

Look For:

• Sophisticated vocabulary
• Colorful speech
• Creative storytelling
• Clever jokes and puns

Example:

LaMarr entertains his friends with clever “Your momma’s so fat . . . ” jokes.

Implication:

Look for unusual creativity or advanced language development in children’s everyday speech.

Learning Ability

Look For:

• Ability to learn new information quickly
• Exceptional knowledge about a variety of topics
• Ability to find relationships among diverse ideas
• Excellent memory

Example:

Four-year-old Gina teaches herself to read using several reading primers she finds at home. Initially, her mother identifies a few words for her. From these words she deduces many letter-sound correspondences that enable her to decipher additional words.

Implication:

Make note of situations in which children learn and comprehend new material more quickly than their peers. Look for creative analogies and interconnections.

Problem-Solving Skills

Look For:

• Ability to solve challenging problems
• Flexibility in applying previously learned strategies to new kinds of problems
• Ability to improvise with commonplace objects and materials

Example:

A fourth-grade class plans to perform a skit during an upcoming open house. When the children puzzle about how to hang a sheet from the ceiling (to serve as a stage curtain), Jeff suggests that they turn their desks to face the side of the classroom rather than the front. This way, the sheet can be hung from a light fixture that runs the length of the room.

Implication:

Present unusual tasks and problems for which children have no ready-made strategies.

Cognitive and Metacognitive Strategies

Look For:

• Use of sophisticated learning strategies
• Desire to understand rather than memorize
• Effective comprehension monitoring

Example:

Shannon, a sixth grader, explains that she learned the countries on South America’s west coast (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile) by creating the sentence, “Colin eats peas and chocolate.”

Implication:

Ask children to describe how they think about the things they are trying to learn and remember.

Curiosity and Inquisitiveness

Look For:

• Voracious appetite for knowledge
• Tendency to ask a lot of questions
• Intrinsic motivation to master challenging subject matter

Example:

Alfredo reads every book and article he can find about outer space. He has a particular interest in black holes.

Implication:

Find out what children like to do in their free time.

Leadership and Social Skills

Look For:

• Ability to persuade and motivate others
• Exceptional sensitivity to other people’s feelings and body language
• Ability to mediate disagreements and help others reach reasonable compromises

Example:

As a high school student, Gina organizes and directs a schoolwide peer tutoring program.

Implication:

Observe how children interact with their peers at play, in cooperative group work, and in extracurricular activities.