Psychology Report: Three Learning Stories of Henry's Math Abilities

This psychology report details the mathematical learning of a five-year-old child named Henry, focusing on three learning stories observed during family gathering activities. The first story highlights Henry's exceptional puzzle-solving abilities, attributing it to his introverted nature and analytical skills. The second story showcases his proficiency in backward counting under various conditions, revealing strong problem-solving skills. The third story explores Henry's talent in identifying shapes, figures, and mixing colors, indicating a keen understanding of spatial relationships and proportions. The report provides an analysis of the mathematical learning in each story, including suggestions for follow-up activities and advice for the family to support and extend Henry's learning at home. The reflection section emphasizes the importance of learning stories in assessing a child's progress, facilitating discussions with parents, and guiding their behavior towards positive development.

Running Head: PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCHOLOGY: LET’S COUNT

PSYCHOLOGY
Part A: Three learning stories
1. Solving Puzzles
Henry is a five-year-old kid with an introvert nature, who could be found playing alone
with a ball or solving short puzzles. According to mathematician, Afsar & Masood, introvert
children are more likely to be good at solving logical reasoning questions and puzzles (Afsar
& Masood, 2018). He is less inclined towards socializing with other kids or the members but
could be found lost in his own thoughts or doing something creative. Unlike the child of his
age, Henry does not prefer to be at noisy place and prefers peace above everything. The other
quality that makes him different from other kids is his attitude of composure as he is not
highly reactive.
According to Amanchukwu, the high level of composure in an individual, points out to
the great creative solving techniques in a child (Amanchukwu, 2015). I have observed Henry
at various occasions where I found his usual past time is playing with the puzzles. The
puzzles are of various categories where they have to adjust it to make a picture presented to
them. From the beginning, I have observed him doing puzzles in an efficient way unlike other
kids of his age. In one of the classes, children were taught the maps of the country where they
were taught with the help of colors so that they can easily learn different areas of the country.
After class, the responses of the children were average where most children were able to
identify various areas represented to them during the class but I observed the extraordinary
response of Henry.
After the maps class, children were made to the perform an exercise of putting the pieces
of the map puzzle together in twenty minutes. After twenty minutes, I checked every children
desk where most of them were unable to put the pieces together while some children were
unable to complete it in time. Among all the class children, Henry was the one who within
fifteen minutes was able to correctly organize the pieces of the maps. After looking at
Henry’s capabilities, I started developing in him the higher level of mathematical learning by
helping him to solve the puzzles of higher level where he had to solve the intricate pictures
designs with help of videos. Initially, in the first five days, it was difficult for him to
understand about certain things but with time, he developed the right understanding of doing
it.
This extraordinary trait could be observed in the five-year child who could so easily solve
the map puzzle just after one class. During the Family gathering activities also, I could find

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him correctly organizing the items or the toys in a row horizontally and vertically (Anacleto,
2014). These activities of Henry are suggestive of the high mathematical and logical abilities
of Henry. The correct organization of the puzzle by Henry was suggestive of his good
catching power and analytical skills which are both required in solving the mathematics
questions in an effective and efficient manner. The advices that I would like to give to the
family to help henry in the mathematical skills are that the family must focus on developing
the analytical skills of henry by developing his interest in puzzle arrangement techniques.
Henry’s guardians must ensure that he should be given a lot amount of time in organizing the
items and other stuff. The proper focus should be given on development of the skills so that
he can perform best in the area of mathematics.
2. Counting backwards
It was the evening time when Henry was involved in playing with puzzle games at the
family gathering activities. In that time, henry was called on by his friends to play a counting
game with them. During the game, a child has to count the number of items of a thing
presented in their surrounding and then do its backward counting. As I observed that, during
the game, many children stuttered in doing the backward counting and were fired from the
game but when the turn of the henry comes who was asked to do the counting of candies
lying on the table. Henry counted it to 30 and was able to do the backward counting with
ease. The act of doing backward counting of the number thirty with ease surprised me. Henry
did not even stutter for a second, in counting the number thirty backward.
In another round of the game, many other children were fired from the game, when the
second turn comes to Henry, he was asked to count the number of black color boxes in the
painting and to count them backward by leaving a number between them. Henry counted the
number of black boxes in the painting to be fifty and he was able to perfectly count it
backward by leaving a number between them. In this round, also he did not stutter. In the
round third, Henry had to count the number of red color balls in the bag and this time he had
to leave two numbers in between them. Henry counted the number of red balls to be 40 and
was again successfully count it backwards. This time also he did not stutter and was able to
achieve the task with ease.
The activities that I observed of Henry really surprised me and made me consider his
mathematical skills extraordinary. Henry mathematical skill of counting was commendable as
he did not excel in simply counting but was also able to achieve the counting under various

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circumstances or conditions. He was able to do the backward counting with ease. These acts
of counting were reflective of the good problem-solving skills of henry that are required to be
a great problem solver in mathematics. The problem-solving skills of henry made it easy for
the henry to achieve the goals of the targeted goals (Anastasia, 2015). After looking at
Henry’s capability in the mathematics, I planned to teach him numbers till 150 using
interactive plays that include colorful bottles and different shapes. He was able to learn from
them in a very effective manner after certain classes, he was able to grasp numbers till 120
really well. I attribute Henry’s extraordinary capabilities to fast learning.
The family members of the Henry can be guided to help Henry to develop the
mathematical skills in an effective manner by enlisting him to the abacus classes where he
could be taught about various numeric skills or to do the calculations in an effective and
efficient manner. The family members must ensure that these exercises will make them quite
understanding in various things and resulting in better achievement in their career of
mathematics (Kemakorn,, 2014).
3. Identification of shapes and figures
It was the picnic time at family gathering where they were enjoying the warm time with
each other. Henry was also involved in various exercises that include playing with games and
numbers. It also included various vocabulary games. During that time of field visit, children
were asked to perform an exercise of identifying figures and categorizing them into various
categories. Children were left in the garden, where five rounds of the shapes identification
were conducted. In first round, children were asked to note down the triangles that they could
identify in the surrounding and in other rounds they were asked to identify various items in
the category of rectangle. Henry in all the rounds was able to correctly identify the items and
put them into category of triangles or rectangles. He was able to correctly note down its sides
and the vertices which was quite a great achievement of a child of his age.
In other exercises, children were directed to play the game of filling various color
liquids in the beaker to produce the designated colors. In the first round of the game, Henry
was asked to produce the dark color of grey by mixing brown, white, and black color liquids.
The children were specified the quantity of the items to be used in certain promotion like 50
ml of white, brown and black colors. Henry was quite successful in mixing the colors in the
right promotion and achieved the designated colors. At other times, he was asked to produce

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the dark green color where the colors were not disclosed to him, he was able to produce the
right mixture of the dark green color.
The dark green color that was produced by him was exactly of right texture and color.
After observation, it could be concluded that Henry is blessed with the innate quality of good
identification of shapes and colors. In other exercises, Henry had to develop the cylindrical
and triangular structure out of clay where henry was able to mold it in the best manner that is
suggestive of the good innate quality of molding the clay into different items by taking in
account the measurement. Although these exercises, were helpful in discovering the innate
quality of Henry but it has also developed in him the understanding of the right proportion
used in developing the certain colors (Cherry, The Incentive Theory of Motivation, 2019).
Henry in the exercise was the fast learner where he learned about the application of mixing
with the right colors to develop the certain colors.
Part 2: Reflection
Learning stories are the most important part of teacher’s life in noting down the
child’s progress in learning. A teacher gets to know a lot about the child behavior towards the
particular subjects where it becomes very easy to make them understand the pros and cons of
the things. It also helps them guide the child behavior to the right track. During my
experiences with several children, I have understood various behavior of them. I have learned
how various children react to various learning process in the long run. According to
Anderson, every child is different with different abilities and their thinking capacity differs in
many ways thus making them understand things in various different ways (Anderson, 2017).
A child might be good at understanding through games while the other child might be good at
learning from videos or plays. The case of Henry is one such great example where parents
can be taught about how children react under various activities. The example of Henry can
make them believe that children can learn big things only if they are provided with the right
environment to learn from them.
These learning stories can serve as the best way for the parents to get their child
enrolled in the pre-school. It will serve as the motivating force regarding how a child can
become extraordinarily brilliant in the area. It can make them believe the stories of getting
done in the best possible manner. According to Asarnow, learning stories have the power to
transform their behavior in the positive way so that the goals can be achieved in the right
manner. It has the power to transform the parent’s psyche to the positive one (Asarnow,

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2017). It gives them hope that the right things can be achieved by analyzing the behavior of
the child and making them do the right tasks or the exercises so that best things can be done.
The learning stories will pave the way towards achieving the set goals or objectives in the
effective way (William,, 2019).
I felt really valued when I was able to analyze the behavior of the henry minutely and
understand that how the activities organized at family gathering were helpful in bringing out
the latent talent of Henry to the surface. The activities of counting backwards were helpful in
understanding the behavior of the child (Cherry, Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences,
2019). In the scenario of Henry, the extraordinary quality of henry was brought to the surface
thus directing the efforts of his parents and pre-school teachers at new great level. Though
henry showed great talent at various exercises, but there were some exercises where he was
not able to perform that well such as mixing of the colors.
The efforts of the teachers of the playschool made him learn about various techniques
of doing things in the best manner possible. It had taught him the right ways of getting things
done in the effective manner. The puzzle exercises taught Henry the analytical skills of
putting the maps together in an effective manner. In the class, the maps exercises provided to
henry was helpful in improving the imagination level of Henry where he could achieve the
things in the effective manner. These stories that were formed offered the great insights to the
parents about how the skills are developed in a child. Through the learning stories, it had also
taught importance of the right kind of environment required for developing certain skills in
children from a very young age (Caproni, 2011). It had made the parents aware about the
importance of the resources and other important matters in developing the right psyche of the
children so that they can achieve the best things in the future (Cavaleri & Shabana, 2018).
According to Batool, learning stories of children are considered game changer as it
motivates the parents and guardians to take right decision about their future (Batool, 2016). It
helps them to take the right decision of about their future. The learning exercises at family
gathering were highly useful in educating the children about various colors and numbers. It
had developed various skills in them such as analytical and observational skills. The program
could have become more interactive if various video or story telling methods are used to
convey them learning’s and studies (Bolton, 2015). They would have felt more alive and
responsive when these innovative ways of doing things were used. The other things would be
incorporating plays in the exercises would have improved the children’s vocabularies and

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numbers knowledge. According to Bennett, plays are the interactive of communication that
are helpful in getting things done in an effective manner (Bennett, 2014). The high level of
interactivity makes the learning of the subjects easier for the kids. In the case of Henry,
various games were organized where he learned the numbers in the best manner possible.

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