Prioritising learning dispositions while weaving in language literacies and mathematics: Teaching, learning, and caring with infants and toddlers

With concerns of the potential push-down of academic school readiness pedagogies following revisions of the New Zealand Curriculum for schools, this research team sought to make apparent to others how early childhood kaiako of infants and toddlers are already weaving together diverse pedagogies to support tamariki learning dispositions and learning of language literacies and mathematics. In response, the research team engaged in collaborative video-stimulated research conversations to analyse the pedagogies used by the two kaiako–researchers during portions of their days with infants and toddlers. This article focuses on overall pedagogies that were utilised as well as a further analysis of how each kaiako wove together these pedagogies during an approximate 20-minute engagement. This analysis highlights how language literacy and mathematics teaching and learning are already present in the complex and interwoven nature of kaiako supporting learning dispositions with tamariki at play.