Our purpose is to make a sustained impact upon the lives of young Australians through advancing the quality of early learning experiences for all children.  The REEaCh Hub works to translate research findings into real-life solutions so that all young children can realize their potential.

People

• 
   Associate Professor Patricia Eadie
  

   +61 3 90354503
  

   peadie@unimelb.edu.au
  

  Director, REEaCh Hub

  Associate Professor Eadie has led multi-disciplinary research projects in early childhood, with a focus on understanding young children’s developmental pathways from birth through to school and evaluating interventions in a variety of settings. Her research focuses on children’s language and literacy learning, the importance of adult-child interactions and strong communication skills to children’s later developmental outcomes. This work includes a focus on best-practice models of professional learning for early child and early years teachers. The approach enables educators to implement high quality teaching practices that increase intentional teaching and instructional support to maximise all children’s learning and development.

• 
   Professor Nicola Yelland
  

  Nicola Yelland is the Professor of Early Childhood Studies in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne. Her teaching and research interests have been related to the use of new technologies in school and community contexts. She has also worked in East Asia and examined the culture and curriculum of early childhood settings. Nicola’s work engages with educational issues with regard to varying social, economic and political conditions and thus requires multidisciplinary perspectives. Recent publications include; Reimagining play with new technologies. In L. Arnott (Ed.) Digital technologies and learning in the early years. (London, UK: SAGE) and Yelland, N.J. & Leung, W.M. Policy into practice in Hong Kong pre-primary kindergartens: the impact of a reform agenda viewing early childhood as the foundation for lifelong learning. International Journal of Early Years. And Arvanitis, E., Yelland, N.J & Kiprianos, P. (2019). Liminal spaces of temporary dwellings: Transitioning to new lives in times of crisis. Journal of Research in Childhood Education. 33:1, 134-144.

• 
   Associate Professor Jane Page OAM
  

  Dr Jane Page is an Associate Professor in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education (MGSE) at the University of Melbourne and a Senior Researcher in the REEaCh Hub. Jane has worked in the early childhood field for over thirty years covering a range of roles both as a director and teacher in early childhood services as well as teaching and researching in the University sector. Jane’s research interests include teacher effectiveness, coaching and educational leadership and the application of human rights principles in early childhood settings.

• 
   Dr Ben Deery
  

  Dr Ben Deery is an early career researcher, supervisor, and lecturer in Early Childhood Education and Care at the MGSE, University of Melbourne. He is a registered Clinical Neuropsychologist, with many years’ experience working both clinically and in research-based roles across paediatric and childhood neurodevelopmental disorders. He is also a qualified Early Childhood Educator, has worked as a Consultant Neuropsychologist for Pearson Australia, and has lectured previously in Educational Psychology. Ben's primary areas of research interest are in evidence-based learning interventions for children, childhood learning disorders, and the application of mindfulness, play/games-based interventions, and social-emotional learning in the early years. Ben is currently working on several innovative intervention pilots and proof-of-concept studies, including an ARC funded play-based mindfulness program for young children, use of games to increase positive adult-child interactions and child development, and new methods for assessing young children's mental health and cognitive development. His appointments at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education and the Murdoch Children Research Institute reflect his broader interest in collaboration between health and education fields to better support children during the early years.

• 
   Dr Penny Levickis
  

  Dr Penny Levickis is a postdoctoral research fellow in theREEaCh Hub. She was awarded her PhD by the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Melbourne. Her PhD was in the field of child language development, specifically examining contributions of parent behaviours to child language outcomes in a community-based sample of slow-to-talk toddlers. Her primary areas of research interest are in examining factors that predict variation in language pathways, in particular contributions of adult-child interactions as well as investigating the effectiveness of prevention and intervention for children at risk of developmental language disorder. In her recent work as part of her Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellowship she explored parents’ experiences of taking part in parent language programmes aimed at enhancing parent-child interaction. Penny’s current research focuses on enhancing the quality of educator-child interactions in early childhood education and care to promote child language development and reduce social inequalities. This is an opportunity to provide enriched language learning opportunities to the most vulnerable children and their families who find engaging directly with early intervention services difficult.

• 
   Dr Sue Mentha
  

  Dr Sue Mentha is a lecturer at MGSE. Her interests are in human rights, visibility of existence and unpacking coloniality in education and research to make spaces for co-production and enacted voice so that all Australians have ownership of the education and research they participate in. Sue’s current project is in co-designing Professional Learning trajectories for Working with Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and knowledge and perspectives in the classroom. She is also working on a visible mapping of the UNCRC and UNDRIP with early years learning frameworks to raise the visibility of these responsibilities in education.

• 
   Dr Amelia Church
  

  Amelia is a conversation analyst who studies children’s knowledge-in-interaction. Her current research focuses on participation frameworks in early childhood settings – in particular teacher responsivity – and using the Conversation Analytic Role-play Method (CARM) for professional development.

• 
   Dr Edith Nicolas
  

  Dr Edith Nicolas is an Early Childhood Educator and a Linguist. She currently coordinates the Clinical Teaching Practice subjects on the Master of Teaching (Early Childhood). Edith’s research is in early childhood language development and bilingualism. She has recently been involved in the Early Childhood Language Program project, researching best evidence practice and developing course material to support the implementation of the program in preschool settings across Victoria. She had previously developed her own French language program incorporating play-based pedagogies to support young children’s second language acquisition.

• 
   Dr Jeanne Marie Iorio
  

  Jeanne Marie Iorio, EdD is a Senior Lecturer in early childhood education. Her research, teaching, and writing focuses on disrupting and rethinking accepted educational practices in early childhood and higher education. This work includes rethinking quality as meaning-making; children’s relations with place, more-than-human and materials; pedagogical documentation and research methods; and pedagogies originating from the municipal infant-toddler centres and preschools in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Her research project ‘Out and About’ with Dr Catherine Hamm (La Trobe University) is part of an international research collective (www.commonworlds.net) and seeks to understand and document teaching pedagogies that support children and educators in building deep relationships with place and the more-than-human. ‘Children as Capable’ (also with Dr Catherine Hamm) considers the teaching practices utilised to enact the image of the child as capable throughout the daily ordinary moments in a classroom.

• 
   Dr Sonja Arndt

  Dr Sonja Arndt's teaching and research sit at the intersection of early childhood education, childhood studies and philosophy of education. With 30 years' experience in early childhood education, her involvement in the unique environment of Playcentre in New Zealand, grounded her strongly in a community centred, collective approach to pedagogies, teaching and research. Sonja was an early childhood teacher in New Zealand and Germany, before becoming a lecturer and senior lecturer, most recently at the University of Waikato. She has a particular interest in cultural identity, otherness and belonging, and philosophies of subject formation, which have led to her teaching and researching in diverse contexts, including Sweden, Denmark, Malta, China, India, Indonesia and others.

  Sonja's concerns with children's cultural identities arise in the lack of attention paid to teachers' cultural otherness is a strong theme in her research and publications. They provoke her exploration of diverse methodologies and theoretical perspectives including posthuman and new materialist notions of culture, relationships and human interdependencies with more than human beings, things and places. Sonja is the Vice-President of the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (PESA) and is involved in a number of editorial projects and innovations, including as Chair of the Editors Collective, Deputy Editor of Policy Futures in Education and as a book series editor of the Springer Series: Children: Posthumanist perspectives and materialist theories. One of Sonja's recent developments in her teaching includes involving students in intercultural engagements with other student teachers in diverse countries through COLAB - Collaborative Online Learning Across Borders.

• 
   Dr Jayson Cooper

  Dr Jayson Cooper is a Lecturer in Early Childhood at the University of Melbourne. His research, teaching, and writing focuses on public pedagogy, the arts, and democracy within early childhood contexts. In this work he invites critical relationships with place, Kulin Country and more widely Aboriginal knowledges and pedagogies from Australia, and other ‘southern locations’. This academic work is situated within post-qualitative research methods and is illustrated through artistic processes, practices and pedagogies.  He develops relational understandings of place, childhoods, the non-human, materiality and land-based pedagogies (which includes decolonising agendas) across his work. Jayson provides professional development for early childhood and primary educators that bridges the human-nature divide through artistic processes and online, digital technologies.

• 
   Catriona Elek
  

  Catriona Elek is a Research Fellow at the REEaCh Hub. Catriona joins us with a background in adult education and over 20 years’ experience in project management, evaluation research and social service delivery. She has worked in early childhood, health and community services – in Sydney, Alice Springs and Melbourne. She is also experienced in facilitating quality professional learning experiences, most recently in relation to early literacy and working in partnership with families. She is currently a PhD candidate at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education investigating coaching for early childhood educators.

• 
   Lisa Murray
  

  Lisa Murray is a Research Fellow at the REEaCh Hub. Lisa completed her Master of Teaching at the University of Melbourne and has a background in primary art education. She has broad project management and research experience having worked across a range of projects relating to educational policy, research and practice. Lisa has experience of coordinating early childhood education research studies including a national longitudinal study and more recently a linkage study with Indigenous children in remote Northern Territory communities.

Current projects

Learning from COVID-19 crisis in early childhood education: Educator wellbeing and family engagement

Led by the REEaCh Hub, this project is a partnership with the Centre for Community Child Health (CCCH) at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI), and Goodstart Early Learning. The project comprises two main phases. In phase one, we will use online survey and interview methods to generate insights about innovative family engagement practices used by Goodstart early childhood education and care (ECEC) services during the COVID-19 pandemic to maintain connection with vulnerable children and families in Australia. We will also explore which organisational structures and practices were effective in supporting educator wellbeing during the pandemic. In phase two, an expert coach will provide coaching in quality improvement methodology for a small group of educators (ECE improvement teams at five Goodstart services) who will test and refine innovative practices over a period of 18 months. Knowledge translation methodology will be used to develop resources and disseminate learnings widely, and benefits will be extended to other Goodstart services nationally. This project has been funded by the Ian Potter Foundation.

Research Network of Early Childhood Professionals

The Research Network of Early Childhood Professionals was established in 2019, with the aim of inviting early childhood professionals in Australia to generate and facilitate high quality research into common, real-world issues in Early Childhood Education (ECE). By participating in this network you will be encouraged to contribute to research projects, build your networks with other Early Childhood Professionals, and to attend professional learning workshops, seminars and conferences at the University of Melbourne. The network currently comprises over 300 members of the ECE workforce and continues to grow.

Join the Network

Family engagement with Early Childhood Education and Care during the COVID-19 pandemic

Led by Dr Penny Levickis, this research project aims to find out if the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way families use and interact with their early childhood education and care services. We are also interested in exploring how early childhood education and care services have supported families and children with learning at home during the stay-at-home restrictions, as well as how services might be able to support families in the future. All parents and carers of children aged 1-6 years in Victoria who use early childhood education and care services were invited to take part in this research. Phase one surveys and interviews were completed in September-October 2020, and follow up surveys and interviews will be conducted in 2021.

Teaching Tool for Kindergartens (Assessment for Learning Project)

Project Directors

Associate Professor Tricia Eadie
Email: peadie@unimelb.edu.au

Jayne Johnston
Email: Jayne.johnston@unimelb.edu.au

The Assessment Research Centre, in partnership with the Research in Effective Education in Early Childhood Hub (REEaCh), is working with the Victorian Government Department of Education and Training to develop a Teaching Tool for Kindergartens (the Tool). The Tool will support early childhood educators to effectively observe and assess kindergarten children’s learning and understand their progress on developmental progressions. The observation-based Tool will draw teachers' attention to the next steps in a child’s learning and support them to be more intentional and goal-directed in their teaching practices.

The development of the Tool will take place over two phases. The first will be a testing phase designed to adapt the current Early ABLES suite so that it is valid for use by educators with typically developing children aged two to six years. Experienced early childhood teachers and leaders will be engaged in this phase.

The second phase will pilot the use of the adapted Tool in kindergarten services to determine how easy the Tool is for educators to use, what professional learning and support is required, and the Tool's impact on teaching practices.

Lessons learned from both phases will inform future implementation plans by the Department.

The project commenced in June 2020 and will conclude in 2023.

Researchers

• Dr Toshiko Kamei (Project Lead, Assessment)
• Associate Professor Jane Page (Project Lead, Early Years Learning)
• Dr Cuc Nguyen
• Dr Jane Strickland
• Dr Ben Deery
• Catriona Elek
• Hilary Slater
• Nafisa Awwal

Improving Teaching Skills for Early Childhood Educators (ITSECE)

Improving Teaching Skills for Early Childhood Educators (ITSECE) is a project carried out in partnership with the Victorian Curriculum & Assessment Authority (VCAA) to validate and test the reliability of a self-reflection tool that focuses on the quality of instructional support provided by teachers of children aged from three to five years. An important part of the evaluation will determine implications in making the tool accessible for use in all early childhood settings.

Families as First Teachers (FaFT) Online Coaching study

The FaFT online coaching study is a one-year project funded by the Northern Territory Government’s Department of Education to examine the impact of targeted coaching and web-based support on FaFT Family educators’ (FE’s) and Family Liaison Officers’ (FLO’s) fidelity of implementation of conversational reading teaching strategies in their daily interactions with mothers and young children attending the FaFT playgroups in 10 remote Northern Territory communities. The objectives of this study include 1) Testing the effectiveness of online coaching and web-based support on improving the quality of FaFT FE’s and FLO’s conversational reading teaching practices in daily FaFT playgroup educational programs, 2) Tracking over time the impact of coaching and web-based feedback on FE’s and FLO’s fidelity of implementation of conversational reading at FaFT and 3) Gaining FE’s and FLO’s feedback on the usefulness of online coaching and web-based support in supporting them to implement conversational reading teaching strategies with fidelity in their daily interactions with mothers and young children and supporting them to coach mothers and family members in conversational reading.

Improving children's language, literacy and mental health: Evaluating the impact of the Classroom Promotion of Oral Language (CPOL) approach.

This project is led by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in collaboration with the University of Melbourne, La Trobe University, Deakin University and partnering with Catholic Education Melbourne and the Victorian Department of Education.

Children’s ability to communicate and use language impacts access and participation in education as it affects their capacity to learn, mental health, behaviour and life opportunities. Language competence, including spoken communication and literacy, is a major influence on children’s developmental pathways and life success.  Few studies have explored the types of professional learning programs that build teacher capacity and can improve oral language for children when implemented at scale. The Classroom Promotion of Oral Language (CPOL) trial built on the Oral Language Supporting Early Literacy (OLSEL) Pilot and was developed to investigate the impact of teacher-led oral language promotion on child language, literacy, and mental health outcomes in grade 3. The CPOL trial was conducted within Victorian Department of Education and Training and Catholic Education Commission of Victoria schools across Victoria, Australia.

Early Language in Victoria Study (ELVS)

This project is led by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in collaboration with the University of Melbourne, La Trobe University, and Deakin University.

ELVS is a longitudinal epidemiological study of the emerging communication, language and literacy skills of approximately 1800 Victorian children born in 2002. ELVS is internationally unique in its coverage of the pre-school period and in its depth of data from multi-source informant questionnaires, direct assessment in language-related dimensions (speech, vocabulary, fluency literacy, cognition), psycho-social and educational domains (social, emotional and behavioural development, quality of life, educational achievement, health care utilisation), and linkage to nationally acquired academic achievement data. ELVS was designed to better understand language development, trajectories from infancy through to middle childhood, and factors that predict later outcomes.

Recent projects

Literacy Teaching Toolkit

The Literacy Teaching Toolkit was developed in partnership between the Melbourne Graduate School of Education and the Victorian DET. The early childhood toolkit presents high quality integrated teaching and learning approaches focused on language and literacy.

http://www.qefwas.icu/research/projects/literacy-teaching-resource

The Victorian Advancing Early Learning (VAEL) Study

The Victorian Advancing Early Learning Study was a three-year research project funded by the Victorian Department of Education and Training. The study was conducted in partnership with Moonee Valley City Council, Hume City Council and Mission Australia. The VAEL study developed, piloted and tested a professional learning model which specifically focused on improving the quality of educator–child interactions, and advancing young children’s learning outcomes in the first four years of life. The

professional learning intervention components included (a) Abedecarian Approach Australia (3a) training and an overview of the domains of Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), and (b) expert and local coaching to support Educational Leaders and educators with the implementation of the 3a pedagogical strategies.

https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/about/research/VAELReportAugust2017.pdf

https://3a.www.qefwas.icu/3a-resources

Every Toddler Talking Research Evaluation

The Every Toddler Talking (ETT) research trial aligns with the Victorian Government Education State priorities to achieve earlier engagement in high quality learning, better connection between services, and better support for children and families experiencing disadvantage. ETT aims to advance babies’ and toddlers’ learning and development by boosting the ability of early childhood education and care (ECEC) services to support language and literacy learning for all children aged birth to three, and improve collaboration between early childhood educators and speech pathologists. The Melbourne Graduate School of Education partnered with the Victorian Department of Education and Training (DET) to evaluate the ETT project.

http://www.qefwas.icu/research/projects/every-toddler-talking-research-evaluation

Building a Bridge into Preschool in Remote Northern Territory Communities

In collaboration with the Northern Territory Department of Education (DoE), Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), the study aimed to increase the school readiness of young Indigenous children in two remote communities in the Territory. Using a validated early childhood program model - Abecedarian Approach Australia (3a) - with local cultural and educational practices, a cohort of 80 children aged between 12 months and 3 years and their families were followed, to identify the contributions of learning in the early years of life. The process of program implementation, family and child participation, and adult/child interactions were also studied in order to understand their relationship(s) to child outcomes.

The focus of this study was the engagement of remote Indigenous children and families in a culturally appropriate, validated early childhood education and care program that provides an opportunity to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous school achievement. This focus was informed throughout the study by local Indigenous perspectives on the teaching and learning practices that support young children to learn and prepare them for school.

http://www.qefwas.icu/research/projects/building-a-bridge-into-preschool-in-remote-northern-territory-communities

E4Kids

Effective Early Educational Experiences, or E4Kids, is the most extensive longitudinal study ever conducted into the impact and effectiveness of early childhood education and care in Australia, as well as outcomes for children who do not attend programs.

Over five years, we followed almost 2,500 children in Victoria and Queensland, measuring their progress as they participated in childcare, pre-school and family day care programs.

Our research examined the contributions made by different programs to children's learning and development over time, featuring children in both home-based and centre-based environments as a part of the study.

http://www.qefwas.icu/research/projects/E4Kids

Related projects

Global Childhoods: Life-worlds and Educational Success in Australia and Asia

This project investigates how everyday life-worlds of Year 4 students (9-10 years of age) in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore shape children’s orientations to educational success. Situated in the global cities of Melbourne, Hong Kong and Singapore, the study explores connections between policy contexts, school experiences and everyday activities of children growing up in the Asian Century. Findings will advance knowledge of factors that contribute to children’s understandings of how their experiences in and out of school prepare them for futures in a global world. This will enable policy-makers, educators and parents to provide improved learning opportunities in children’s lives.

Australia’s capacity to maintain a strong position in the global economy depends upon its ability to learn from and share knowledge with its regional neighbours. This research impacts Australia’s knowledge of educational and cultural practices in four major global cities, producing social and economic benefits for Australia’s future.

Student projects

Catriona Elek

The influence of coaching interactions on early childhood educators’ learning

Supervisors: A/Prof Jane Page and A/Prof Tricia Eadie

Olivia Penna

Implementing Inclusive Education in Early Childhood Settings

Supervisors: A/Prof Tricia Eadie, Prof Lorraine Graham & A/Prof Jane Page

Cristina Guarella

Enacting the Northern Territory Preschool Science Games: Supporting Teacher Practice in Early Childhood Science Education.

Supervisors: Professor Jan van Driel and Associate Professor Caroline Cohrssen

Claudine Lam

Counter narratives from the field: the lived experiences of early childhood educators of colour.

Supervisor: A/Prof Kylie Smith

Samantha Simpson

Validation of a developmental screening tool for Australian Aboriginal children

Supervisors: Dr Anita D’Aprano and A/Prof Jane Page

Phyllis Jackson

Connecting policy and parents in the early childhood education and care sector

Supervisors: A/Prof Jane Page and Dr Di Mulchavy

Jackie Brien

The perceptions and experiences of professionals in the early childhood sector regarding ways in which professional reading has supported them to engage with evidence-based practices to improve learning, development and wellbeing outcomes for young children

Supervisors: A/Prof Jane Page and Dr Jeanette Berman

Carolyn Pickett

Early Years Learning in a Remote Kimberley Community

Supervisors: A/Prof Jane Page and Dr Sue Mentha

Adeola Monty

Research interest: Looking at effective teaching practices in kindergarten classrooms in low and middle income countries.

Supervisors: Prof Janet Clinton, A/Prof Jane Page and Dr Rhonda di Biase

Wan Yi Lee

Understanding Early Childhood Teaching and Learning in Two Northern Arnhem Land Family and Playgroup Contexts

Supervisors: A/Prof Janet Scull and Dr Sue Mentha

Jo Dean

Young children making meaning through co-creating art installations

Supervisors: Dr Marnee Watkins and Dr Robert Brown

Latest Publications

Sorting 'red flags' from run-of-the-mill chaos at a childcare centre, Interview with Tricia Eadie on ABC Life, published 5 October 2020

Why ECE is everyone’s business. Pursuit article, published 31 May 2019

An Abecedarian Approach with Aboriginal Families and Their Young Children in Australia: Playgroup Participation and Developmental Outcomes. Page, J., Cock, ML., Murray, L., Eadie, T., Niklas, F., Scull, J., Sparling, J. (2019)

Quality of Interactions by Early Childhood Educators Following a Language-Specific Professional Learning Program. Eadie, P., Stark, H., Niklas, F. (2019)

Coaching for continuous improvement in collaborative, interdisciplinary early childhood teams. Page, J., Eadie, E. (2019)

Season 2 Ep 5: Talking Teaching considers the growing national momentum for pre-school for three year old children

Research Briefs

Issue Number 01 | AUGUST 2019 | REEaCh Research Brief: Summarising findings and their implications for early childhood programs and practices (PDF, 382Kb)

Issue Number 02 | AUGUST 2019 | REEaCh Research Brief: Summarising findings and their implications for early childhood programs and practices (PDF, 407Kb)

Issue number 03 | July 2020 | REEaCh Practice Brief: Using data to inform ECEC practice: Australian Early Development Census (PDF, 1.37MB)

Research Reports

SmartStart: Pathways to New Learning with Indigenous Children

Smartstart: Creating New Contexts for Learning in the 21st Century

IBM Report: iPlay, iLearn, iGrow

Inking your Thinking: Case Studies in Innovation with Microsoft Surface