Martine van der Pluijm

115 How can teachers build partnerships? of the parents in their classroom. Most teachers perceived a feeling of being related to parents and colleagues and felt competent to work with parents as a result of the AHL program. Most teachers experienced more parental involvement (e.g., more confidence, more communication, and more involvement at school) and more support for children (more fun, pride, openness, and larger vocabulary). All teachers said that they wanted to continue using the seven steps of AHL. These intentions indicate that teachers felt a sense of ownership after implementing the program that may contribute to sustaining this new behavior. Each phase of the program (Establish SFPs, Implement intervention activities, and Stimulate oral language) has notable findings. First, teachers established improved SFPs. They enhanced their recognition of parental knowledge and skills substantially [Step 1: Assess the HLE], which is an important condition for building partnerships that are tailored to the needs and capacities of parents (Manz et al., 2010). However, interviews and class inventory lists showed that teachers had difficulties gaining insight into the interactions and activities in the HLE. Some teachers suggested that spending time with families, preferably at home, is needed to help them to attain this insight and connect their role as a teacher to the HLE. The importance of home visits is underlined by previous research (Blok, Fukkink, Gebhardt, & Leseman, 2005). Furthermore, teachers managed to improve their SFP procedures and the involvement of colleagues and parents [Step 2: Involve parents and colleagues in school-family procedures in support of child language development] . We believe that this organizational step strongly contributed to teachers’ progress and increased parental involvement. Goal-directed SFP procedures shape teachers’ and parents’ mindsets and can change routines (Epstein & Sanders, 2006; Lusse et al., 2019). The results of interviews and observations during parent-child activities also showed improvements in teachers’ reciprocal relationships with parents [Step 3: Build reciprocal relationships] . Additionally, class inventory lists showed some improvement in relationships between teachers and parents, only approaching significance. These are important findings given previous research that shows that teachers encounter difficulties building relationships with parents, particularly when parents have diverse backgrounds (Bakker et al., 2013; Walker & Leg, 2019). However, our findings also show that teachers perceive their relationships with parents at Level 1 (i.e., maximally primary education) as poorer compared to parents at Level 2 and 3 (i.e., minimally lower secondary education). Our interviews indicate that teachers felt pressure and a lack of time for exchanging experiences with parents. These findings underline the necessity to continue devoting attention to building reciprocal relationships with lower- educated parents. Facilitating teachers to spend more time for conferencing with parents at school and by conducting home visits could create more opportunities for teachers for meaningful exchanges without pressure. Providing time and calmness are necessary conditions for teachers to establish the needed trust and understanding with lower-educated parents and align their supportive roles in children’s development (Hannon, Nutbrown, & Morgan, 2019; Manz et al., 2010).