There is growing interest in mathematics learning progressions in early childhood education. Counting is a skill usually developed early in life. The application of the counting principles in early childhood typically entails counting objects. This poses challenges for learning about zero. Indeed, the word “zero” is seldom used in the context of early childhood education. Early childhood educators could purposefully introduce children to zero as a concept and facilitate children’s understanding that zero is a number and more than just the absence of something. “Zero” is introduced in school, but little guidance is provided to teachers within the Australian Curriculum for Mathematics in the Foundation year. This study contributes to a small corpus of research that has investigated preschool children’s understanding of the concept of zero. Unlike other studies, the method employed to elicit children’s knowledge was informal and more similar to educator-child conversations that occur within a playbased curriculum and contribute to formative assessment. Data are presented from 20 children, aged from three to five years, participating in a regional early learning centre. Six children demonstrated familiarity with the symbol for zero (“0”) and/or the concept that zero describes a numerical quantity. Asking a follow-up question encouraged children to share their thinking. The importance of early childhood educators purposefully supporting children’s familiarity with the word zero along as well as the concept of zero is proposed.

人们对幼儿教育中的数学学习进展越来越感兴趣。计数是一项通常在生命早期就发展起来的技能。计数原理在幼儿期的应用通常需要计数物体。这给学习零带来了挑战。事实上，“零”这个词很少在幼儿教育中使用。幼儿教育者可以有目的地向孩子们介绍零这个概念，并帮助孩子们理解零是一个数字，而不仅仅是某种东西的缺失。学校引入了“零”，但预科课程的澳大利亚数学课程中几乎没有为教师提供指导。这项研究有助于调查学龄前儿童对零概念的理解的小型研究。与其他研究不同，用于引出儿童知识的方法是非正式的，更类似于在基于游戏的课程中发生的教育者与儿童的对话，有助于形成性评估。数据来自参加地区早期学习中心的 20 名 3 至 5 岁儿童。六个孩子表现出对零（“0”）符号和/或零描述数字量的概念的熟悉。提出后续问题鼓励孩子们分享他们的想法。提出了幼儿教育者有目的地支持儿童熟悉“零”一词以及“零”概念的重要性。