Assessment: Assessment relates to how the curriculum is organized and taught with the goals of improving teaching and enhancing learning.

Formative assessment: Formative assessment is the in-progress evaluation of learning. It gives information about changes that are needed to the curriculum or to instructional methods.
 
Summative assessment: Summative assessment happens at the end of a unit, project, or lesson and is used for improving instruction as well as for accountability. 

Authentic learning: Authentic learning occurs in contexts resembling real-world experiences. It has connections to Dewey’s (1938) idea of learning through experience and Vygotsky’s idea of social learning. Dewey believed educational experiences enhanced learning, aided in the growth of the learning, had continuity, were interactive, and were facilitated by adults using child-centred teaching strategies. Vygotsky argued that expert teachers and peers guided children’s experiential learning.

Authentic assessment: Like authentic learning, authentic assessment takes place in the context of real-world learning and is based on teachers’ understandings of children’s various abilities and cultures. Instead of seeing children as deficient or incomplete, then, it recognizes the various assets that children develop in their homes and communities.

School readiness: Generally, school readiness is connected with the push toward preparing young children for school. However, since school readiness is socially constructed there are different views on its’ precise meaning. Some early childhood programs are designed with specific school-readiness goals embedded within them. 

Schoolification: Schoolification refers to the push to enhance school readiness by replicating school-like experiences. Some examples might be teaching letters to preschool-age children as a way of introducing them to reading. 

Standardized tests: Standardized tests are summative assessments designed to test the achievement of an individual child against the perceived norms for that age. The scores of that child can then be compared to others in the same school, district, or even across nations. Believed to be objective measures, the skills and competencies tested are derived from research with a narrow range of children (white, middle-class). These tests position diverse children as deficient and needing remediation to be ready for school.