Priorities, significance, and assessment in early childhood settings: Towards a middle way

This article advances the argument that a priorities-based approach to assessment in early childhood education offers a middle way between inductive and deductive methods of assessment. A developing dialectic in early childhood assessment discourse is discussed as a background to discussion on inductive and deductive assessment strategies. A middle path between induction and deduction is described by constructing a synthesis of approaches, and authenticity in assessment practice is related to the idea of a horizon of significance.