Action research.  A hands-on approach to research for change in a setting.  It involves problem solving and improvements in practice. Participants in the setting are encouraged to participle in all aspects of the research cycle involving defining what to research, gathering information, analyzing, planning for further action, gathering information, critical reflection and possibly further action research cycles.  Action research can be a collaborative endeavour or carried out by an individual.

Affective Development. The area of child’s growth that is about personality, emotions, making and changing friends, social skills and the child’s perception of his/her self.

Assimilation.  A term used in early childhood theory and proposed by a theorist called Jean Piaget to describe how when a child learns a new idea or concept it is fitted into what they currently know or think.

Aotearoa.  Another name given by Maori for the country of New Zealand.

Assessment – Child Assessment.  Information from multiple sources of evidence that is put together and examined and interpreted to make an appraisal of the child or judgment.

Assessment – Developmental Rating Scale.  The child’s performance is compared with a set of developmental norms for children of the same age established through research.

Assessment – Observational. This kind of assessment involves the adult systematically observing the child’s activities, behaviours, language, and level of development to determine what has been learnt, to support the child’s progress, and how to improve teaching and care for the child.  A range of observational tools can be used including:

1. Running records of everything a child says and does over a set period of time.
2. Time sampling by noting what a child is doing at say 10 or 15 minute intervals.
3. Flow charts to trace what activities children do and when or who they interact with.
4. Duration recording to record the length of children’s activities or behaviours.
5. Diary recording also called ‘narrative’ or ‘anecdotal’ recording , to note down the activities of the child that interest the adult. Different people see different things so the diary – like the portfolio (see definition of this) – has different emphases and biases.

Assessment - Portfolio.  This takes the form of a collection of the child’s own work, which becomes a method of assessment when examined impartially. The criteria for determining what was put into the portfolio why and by whom must be known and considered, and judgements about the work and next stages in the child’s learning are made by having a set of pre-determined criteria to follow.

Assessment Theory and Methods of Assessment.  for articles and more information click here.

Attachment.  A long-standing emotionally strong tie between two people.  The key signs of attachment between a child and an adult are.

1. When you move away the child looks at you.
2. The child moves toward you when return after separation.
3. The child goes to you when upset, may cling, and finds personal comfort in being with you
4. When you are present the child feels safe and begins to gain confidence to look around, explore, and leave your side to play with other children or to explore objects and their environment.

In an early childhood service, children who have attachment relationships with their teachers/carers will accept comfort when they are upset, easily follow directions, approach the teacher for hugs and are playful with the teacher (see also definition for primary caregiving).

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Biculturalism.  When adults and children practice the language and customs of two different cultural groups.  For example an early childhood programme in which adults and children speak both English and Maori equally and value and celebrate rituals and customs of both cultures is bicultural.

Centre.  A government licensed and regulated facility for children up to 6 years of age that include: kindergarten, childcare, daycare, crèche, kohanga reo, language nest, Aoga Amata, playcentre, educare, early learning centre, nursery school, Montessori, Rudolf-Steiner, preschool.

Childcare.  A formal or informal arrangement in a home or centre for caring for children while their parents or adult carers are at work, in training, or doing other things.

Co-construction. When an adult or adults and child or children together form their meanings and knowledge.  Co-construction is about learning together and acknowledging that the child can have expertise. Co-construction is about the child’s knowledge and understanding being considered and treated as valid by the adult while the adult is willing to share and develop their own thinking.

Cognitive Development. Also known as intellectual development. The word “cognitive” is about the intellectual mind and how it works – how knowledge is learnt and the way knowledge is used.

Community Early Childhood Service.  A centre or home-based licensed and regulated service that is a registered charity and/or an incorporated society, and may be part of a public or community organisation. Community early childhood services are partly funded by: government, donations from the community, parent fees, and parent donations of time and resources. Community services may be run by a group such as a church group within a local urban or rural area, or may be part of a national or regional chain of services owned by a community organisation (e.g. Barnardos, Auckland Kindergarten Association, Playcentre Federation). Community services receive the same level of government funding as private services and nearly all charge fees. In addition community services may require parent involvement in fundraising or on management committees. Community services are able to apply for community grants and further Ministry of Education funding (e.g. equity funding) that are not available to private services. With the exception of Playcentres and many Kohanga Reo, community services that operate centres in different regions such as kindergartens are not unlike most privately owned centres in operating a commercial management model. 

Development.  Physical growth and other changes that occur from conception and across the life span. It's thought by theorists that we develop as a result of natural maturation or by learning in the environment or as a result of both maturation and learning.

Developmentally Appropriate Practices.  Also known as DAP.  A set of written guidelines published by the American NAEYC association for optimal practices for promoting children’s development that is both age and individually appropriate or suitable for the child. 

Early Childhood Education. A process whereby young children learn and develop knowledge, skills, and understanding.  Early childhood education can take place in any context at any time. In New Zealand ‘ECE’ has been adopted by Government and Government Departments and is used as a phrase or term to describe all licensed and regulated early childhood services and to exclude early childhood education that does not take place in the context of a licensed and regulated setting predominantly not with parents or family but with teachers.

Early Childhood Teacher.  See the definition of an early childhood teacher professional, roles, and characteristics of a teacher by clicking here to go to a specific article discussing the official view.

Early Childhood Service.  Licensed and regulated centres and home-based services for children up to 6 years of age.  Some services cater for children and parents, providing a place where parents can learn about parenting and early education alongside their child.

Educare.  A composite word made up of education and care popular in New Zealand in the 1980s to claim higher status for childcare centres by describing their purpose as ‘educare’.  Also used as an easy short form for the longer term of ‘education and care’ services.

Egocentrism.  Not having the ability to see things from another person’s perspective, or not realising that others’ viewpoints can differ from one’s own.

Epistemology. A term used in research to describe theory of ‘what is known’ and ‘how it comes to be known’.

Evaluation. A process of working out the value or worth of something – how good it is – whether it has value – what value it has – what is going wrong and what is going right. Evaluation is often included as the last step in carrying out an assessment.

Giftedness.  There are many different definitions for giftedness. The most popular ways of defining giftedness are whether a child shows evidence of advanced ability of skill attainment relative to other children of the same age or whether a child has a particular talent or skill such as in mathematical thinking or art (click here to read more).

Guided Participation.  The guiding of a young child in helping the child to learn what is needed to be learnt to be part of a group or culture.

Home-based Service.  Also known as family daycare and in-home education. A government licensed and regulated agency service matching families up with people who take children into their home.  Agencies may also provide playgroups for caregivers (also known as educators) to take children to, and some agencies also offer in-house publicly funded training courses for caregivers.

Infants.  Birth to one year old children – sometimes regarded as infants up to 18 months or until the child is walking when a child then is called a toddler.

Intersubjectivity.  When two or more people engaged in a task with different understandings of it, come to form a shared understanding as each adjusts to each other’s perspective.

Learning.  As a result of influences in the environment, through experiences and people a child’s behaviour, language, knowledge changes.

Learning Dispositions. A term that lacks precision but remains popular with early childhood professionals.  It is usually taken to refer to a child’s orientation to learning.  In a critical review of the concept Jane Bone (2001) makes the point that “`capturing' dispositions is not possible, either on paper or in life.  In the attempt, early childhood educators might be involved in a process at odds with current ideas of equitable practice" (source: Australian Journal of Early Childhood, June 2001).

Licence size.  The total of the number of children a centre can have on the premises for the purposes of care and education at any one time, or the total number of children a home-based scheme/agency can have across different home-educator sites/homes (click here to read more)

Mainstreaming.  Also known as ‘integration’. When children with special learning needs and disabilities are enrolled in the same early childhood programme as other children and have opportunities to do the same activities this is called ‘mainstreaming’.

Maori. The indigenous people of New Zealand

Metacognition. This is an important term that is not well understood.  It means thinking about cognition. Thinking about one’s own mind, one’s knowledge, how it is organised, and what one has learnt.

Methodology. A term used in research to describe a theory of ‘how to do things’.  Methodology refers to the whole process of research . Be careful not to confuse it with the term ‘methods’ which describe only the particular techniques to gather the data/information for the study.

Motor Development.  Also known as motor skill development is about how a child develops physical skills in using his/her body and body parts.

Motor Skills. There are two broad types of motor skills that young children develop – fine motor skills using the smaller muscles for example doing up buttons on a cardigan – and gross motor skills for example, crawling, climbing and skipping.

Outcomes – Child Outcomes. Changes in a child’s skills, ability, attitudes, behaviour, understanding and knowledge that are expected as a result of attending an early childhood programme or receiving services, or being exposed to particular experiences or equipment/toys.

Pakeha.  The ‘white skinned’ settlers in New Zealand. A term to describe non-Maori Europeans who are citizens of New Zealand.  

Parent-Led.  A term coined by the New Zealand Ministry of Education to categorise, for funding purposes, services which are run primarily by parents and provide early childhood education training for parents.

Pedagogy.  It is all that is involved in teaching and in learning.  Therefore it's about more than just teaching or what the teacher does.  The term includes the processes through which the child’s learning is facilitated and the adults assumptions about the nature of the child’s learning.

Peers.  Other kids who are the same age or may be of the same developmental level.  They are not necessarily friends.

Portfolios.  A collection of photos and anecdotal stories about what a child does in childcare typically pasted into a foolscap-sized exercise book. One book may cover a whole year or even two years in the life of a child in an early childhood service as photos and stories are usually, but not always, added spasmodically every couple of weeks or couple of months. Other books may also include a daily description of the child’s activities and go home with the child each day so parents can read about what their child did. In New Zealand it is common to see alongside the photos and anecdotal recordings of activities words such as “belonging”, “contribution” and “exploration” to provide documented evidence for officials to see that children’s activities reflect the programme’s implementation of the curriculum requirements and that they have adopted the language of Te Wharaiki.

Practitioner research.  Those who teach/care for children also take a lead role in doing research; they may be supported or mentored by a trained academic researcher. When practitioner research is made available to other practitioners through publication and it adds to the current research literature then it becomes more than a professional learning exercise and has  external credibility as research.

Preschoolers.  Children between the ages of 3 and up until 5 or 6 years of age when they start primary school.

Primary Caregiver.  This is the parent or adult who takes primary responsibility for the day to day care of the child.   In the context of an early childhood centre or home-based education setting this may also mean a child's special teacher or educator.

Primary Caregiving System.  In early childhood services this term is used to describe a practice whereby a teacher/educator assumes individual responsibility for a child's care and education, including nappy changing, meals and other routines, observing and planning to meet the child's needs, getting to know the child's family and working with the family to ensure the best experiences and the best developmental outcomes for the child.  Click here to go to an article for more details ...

Private Early Childhood Service. A centre or home-based licensed and regulated service that is owned and managed by an individual, family, business partners, company or corporation.  Such services may be owner-supervised where the owner works daily within the service as a member of the staff and thus has a personal commitment to the other staff, children and families at the service. Over recent years, there has been a trend toward buy-ups of single owner-operated services by business people, companies, and corporations. Chain operators are typically business people, or corporations with shareholders, who develop a “brand’ or ‘look’ for their service and the largest chains do their own publicly funded staff training through also being providers of teacher education (e.g. Kindercare and ABC Learning Centres/Kidicorp). Another private management model is the franchise one (for example PORSE in-home education).

Provisionally Registered Teacher. A qualified teacher who has graduated from an early childhood and primary teaching degree or diploma course and has applied to the Teachers’ Council for teacher registration. Teacher registration requires participation in a guidance and support programme and this can take an additional two years on top of the three or four years of study for a teaching qualification.

Quality Early Childhood Education.  

1.  Policy Perspective
Quality services are commonly regarded as all services that are licensed with the Ministry of Education and regulated. Services not licensed (under the Education regulations), at least partially funded by government,  and reviewed by the Education Review Office are typically treated as falling outside of the definition of quality early childhood education.  The definition of quality early childhood education comes down to what settings for the delivery of early childhood education are politically valued most, as the actual quality of informal services in practice for children may be similar to, or better than, some licensed services. 

2.  Union Workforce Perspective  
From the perspective of teachers quality early childhood education is defined as services that employ qualified and registered teachers, financially support teachers in their on-going professional learning through course and conference attendance, provide non-contact time for teachers, are well-resourced, and have higher adult-child ratios and smaller group size than the minimum government licensing standards.

3.  Child Development Expert Perspective
From the perspective of teacher educators and most researchers who adopt a traditional science view of quality - services vary in quality from high to low quality.  Quality is assessed or decided on the basis of ‘structural features’ such as staff qualification level, teacher salaries/wage level, group size, and adult-child ratio, along with ‘process features’ such as activities provided, materials, learning opportunities, and meal-time routines.

4.  Child-centered Family-based Perspective 
From the perspective of modern researchers, children and families quality is about adding value through providing something better and/or more than what children ordinarily experience at home whilst also providing opportunity to practise practical life skills like washing windows and caring for pets. Quality early childhood education is education that results in higher developmental gains/achievements than if the child did not attend. But it cannot be quality unless children are happy, have laughter, friends, rarely feel bored, feel well-cared for and cared about, have their rights and decision-making ability recognised, and are intellectually and physically stimulated and challenged. Quality is also viewed by parents and families as what they gain or don’t gain by using the service, in other words how well they feel they are supported and whether the service is one that delights them and could be recommended to other parents. 

Qualified Teacher.  Current government policy is that a person qualified to work with children from birth to 6 years is one who has graduated from a recognised teacher education early childhood or primary training programme. An early childhood teacher qualification has always been the recognised qualification for working in kindergartens.  For childcare centre qualifications in the past other recognisable qualifications reflected the health and care needs of very young children and need to support parents, for example Karitane and Plunket nurses were recognised as were people who had successfully completed Playcentre training over a number of years.

Sample.  In research this term is used to describe what and who is selected for study – what group of people or population, or what types of early childhood services for example.

Scaffolding. Adult or more skilled child support of a child’s efforts.  A process of graduated assistance that helps to raise the level at which the child is capable of working.

Siblings.  Brothers and sisters.  May include half brothers and sisters.

Socialisation.  How younger family or group members become expert members of the family or group they are part of.

Teacher.  See the definition of an early childhood teacher professional, roles, and characteristics of a teacher by clicking here to go to a specific article discussing the official view.

Toddler.  In research this generally describes a one to three year old child. However in practice the  descriptor of ‘toddler’ is often applied to an infant who begins to walk independently.  This may be at 10 months or at 18 months for example.

Te Whariki.  The national curriculum for all early childhood services, whatever their philosophy, published by the Ministry of Education in 1996.  The curriculum document is one that expresses general principles for early childhood education: holistic development, empowerment, family and community, and relationships.  It does not require subject teaching and learning in any particular curriculum areas or for teachers to have specialised content or subject knowledge.

Teacher-Led. A term coined by the New Zealand Ministry of Education to separately categorise for funding purposes those services which advertise and employ staff and who do not involve parents as educators/staff.

Whanau. Means ‘family’ and includes extended family members who may, or may not, be blood relations.

Zone of Proximal Development.  The difference between what a child can do by him/her self and what the child can do with guidance or help from a more expert child or adult.