How do you write anecdotal records?

There is no formal way to complete ARs.

Typically, one should have one page per student or one page for each student evaluated. Always include the date, time and setting within a brief description of the desired behavior and the behavior displayed.

One or two sentences is good enough. It's a running record, so you do not have to start a new page every time.

Anecdotal Notes Form

Anecdotal records can be written a variety of ways depending on the purpose of them. As a Pre-k teacher, I am assuming these are being written to simply record the child's development.

With that in mind, when I would write anecdotal notes on students, I would write about things I saw the student was doing in relation to his/her verbal skills, fine/gross motor skills, cognitive abilities, social skills, self-help skills and anything else that would be interesting to parents in the documentation of their child's time in school. I would keep a notebook on each child and try to cover all areas of development and supply a photo as well, of the child engaged in play, social or learning activities that I was writing about. From there you can re-copy your entries formally put in a portfolio for the child illustrating the child's development. For example, if the child has had a difficult time using stairs, and one day you see him/her using a new technique to manage the stairs, write what they did and take a photo of their accomplishment. If a child has always grasped a pencil by the fist, document that and show photo, then as you work on this with the child, you can show the progress. Always date your observations and provide the child's age. This technique is so very valuable especially in Early Childhood Education as children develop so quickly that it helps to have this form of observation. The National Association for the Education for Young Children (NAEYC) is a wonderful resource for providing forms and ideas on how to write an observation. Personally, I wrote them as long as they needed to be. If it could be summed up in a sentence, then that's what I did. If the activity/task the child was doing needed me to write more, I did so. I also made sure to list the developmental stage I was writing about, so that parents etc. would know what I was focusing on. A finished student portfolio is a wonderful resource for families, for teachers to have. Keep them to the point and try not to put your personal feelings or opinions out of them...simply describe what the child is doing, how they accomplished the task, what stage of development this refers to and the result.

Leave out opinion words like "good". You could say, "A child with social skills would apologize in this situation, based on Piaget's theory of . . ." Do not make judgements when you reflect. State the facts based on knowledge from your studies. You could say, "It appears that Henry and Alexis did not apologize due to lack of self-competence."