Infant and toddler pedagogy has flourished as a specialized area of practice in early childhood care and education settings, yet it remains an under-researched area. There is also limited empirical research internationally that explores cultural meanings of meaningful provision for this young age group. This ethnographic study explored pedagogies…

Background: National school curriculum statements detail what it is important to learn and are highly context- and discipline-specific. The health and physical education (H&PE) learning areas have multiple learning purposes, and facilitating this in curriculum design is a significant and challenging task. Objective: There is little reporting…

Outdoor education is one of the popular subjects in education recently and used synonymously with different concepts such as adventure education, nature education, museum education, recreation education or experiential education. It is also considered as complementary of mainstream education and a rich learning environment by the researchers. The…

This article presents findings from a doctoral study which examined the ways teaching teams in six New Zealand early childhood education (ECE) centres fostered and supported young children's scientific experiences. The focus of this article is the pedagogical practice of using provocations to facilitate scientific opportunities. The way…

The COVID-19 pandemic poses multiple challenges for young children in the modern world. Listening to, and capturing, the experiences and perspectives of young children on the pandemic are congruent with our sense of an inclusive, democratic society which values solidarity and the right to be heard, yet too often the voices of young children are…

"Tender Shoots" compared two book-reading and conversation approaches for parents and preschoolers to an activity-based control group. The "Rich Reading and Reminiscing" (RRR) condition taught parents to converse about the storyline; the "Strengthening Sound Sensitivity" (SSS) condition taught parents to converse…

The Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) is a promising early intervention for promoting improved social, cognitive, and communication outcomes for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, most studies evaluating group-based delivery of this program have used 15-25 h per week of intervention in specialized ESDM preschools with low…

This collaborative project explores the nature of teacher-child sustained shared thinking (SST) in two kindergartens. SST involves teachers engaging with children in play, working together in back and forth conversations that provide opportunities to discuss, explore, and think about everyday experiences, problems or challenges in an inquisitive…

Here the authors explore everyday teaching strategies that work to implement early childhood curriculum frameworks, using published transcripts of video-recorded data of real-life teacher-child interactions in early childhood centres in Australia and New Zealand. The analysis uses a conversation analysis approach to reveal the sequences of action…

The Reggio Emilia approach is identified as a resource and inspiration in the field of early childhood education. The term 'Reggio Inspired' refers to all Reggio Emilia approach-based practices outside of Reggio Emilia, Italy. This paper presents a comprehensive study of Reggio Inspired empirical research. Results from an integrative review of the…

This study examined the validity of data collected from a novel online story retell task. The task was specifically designed for use by junior school teachers with the support of speech-language therapists or literacy specialists. The assessment task was developed to monitor children's oral language progress in their first year at school as part…

This article presents the findings from a collaborative action research (CAR) study undertaken by a small group of early childhood education teachers working in a New Zealand setting with children aged 3-4 years. The teachers' shared aim was to explore and improve their teaching practices to more effectively support children's prosocial behaviour…

Our study highlights how careful attention to, reflection on, and critical engagement with the dialogues of 2-year-olds in preschool 'mixed-age' settings can help teachers work more effectively with these learners. The teachers in our study carried out in-depth coding of, and reflection on, comprehensive video footage of dialogues involving…

This article describes a study undertaken in New Zealand, England and Sweden and is based on the use of a tool developed by the researcher as a professional development and teaching tool in technology education for teachers of students between four and six years of age. The aim of the research was to investigate teachers' views of the…

In the world's richest countries, some children do worse at school than others because of circumstances beyond their control, such as where they were born, the language they speak or their parents' occupations. These children enter the education system at a disadvantage and can drop further behind if educational policies and practices reinforce,…