This study investigated factors related to the quality of early‐childhood practitioners’ interactions with infants in play and routine contexts. Participants were 24 practitioners working with 9–20‐month‐old infants in long day‐care infant programmes. Video‐recordings of their interactions with a nominated infant during play and in routine contexts were rated for levels of sensitivity and stimulation. Practitioners were asked to interpret extracts of this video footage and these interpretations were rated according to the complexity of the interpretive narrative. Results indicated relationships between practitioner qualification, their levels of interpretive complexity and the quality of their interactions. The quality of play interactions was significantly higher than that of routine interaction. The implications of these findings in relation to the provision of high‐quality infant day‐care programmes are discussed.

This article examines how joint attention episodes constitute a core feature of relational pedagogy for infants and toddlers. It draws on social interactionist approaches to language and cognitive development to propose that joint attention may afford significant current and future potential for young children’s learning. However, most joint attention research has taken place within experimental settings, so current definitions of joint attention do not take into account the dynamic group-based nature of the infant-toddler room. In this article, the author presents findings from a study of the language environment of infant-toddler rooms to examine the characteristics of joint attention episodes as they naturally occurred in infant-toddler programs. The author illustrates how qualitatively different episodes of educator–infant joint attention support both language and cognitive development. In doing so, she proposes a theoretical model to represent the learning potential of these shared experiences with the aim of enhancing current understandings of what it means to learn collaboratively in infant-toddler group settings.

Contemporary approaches to early childhood education widely acknowledge that young children's relationships with others play a fundamental role in their learning and development. This article explores the construct of relationships within the context of early childhood infant programmes through an examination of the contribution and applicability of attachment theory to current understandings of the nature and consequences of young children's relationships in these settings. A review of the sociocultural context of relationships, the infants' role in relationship formation, and the nature of peer relationships leads to the proposal that practitioners, policy makers, and researchers need to adopt a wider, more dynamic approach to relationships that includes, but extends beyond, that afforded by attachment theory alone.

THIS STUDY INVESTIGATES THE quantity and quality of infant–toddler educators' language-support practices during morning or afternoon snack-time short episodes. Infants' participation in, and the quality of their interactions with adults plays a critical role in their language development. However, while mealtimes with older children have been identified as providing rich opportunities for language development, research suggests that infant educators may overlook the pedagogical significance of this context. The participants comprised 26 focus educators whose video-recorded snack-time interactions were extracted from a three-hour observation of their normal duties with the children. The recording and associated transcript of focus educator talk was analysed to determine measures of language-promoting talk characteristics and teaching strategies. Overall results illustrate that educators' language-promoting practices were limited in their potential to promote language development. Individual differences were positively related to qualification level, and to whether or not the educator predominantly sat with the children, and were negatively related to infant–educator ratios. Findings suggest the need for an increased focus on educators' pedagogical knowledge and skills related to supporting language development with these very young children.