Martine van der Pluijm

128 Chapter 5 The At Home in Language program Building upon the existing body of knowledge on School-Family Partnerships (SFPs) and Family Literacy Programs (FLPs) that has been found to be effective for supporting lower-educated parents, we designed the At Home in Language (AHL) program. This program aims to address the need for ecologically valid approaches to support lower-educated parents to stimulate their young children’s language development. For this aim, we coached teachers to develop their abilities to build goal-directed partnerships with parents connecting the school and home environments (Bronfenbrenner, 1977; 1992). We developed a series of seven steps that guide teachers to build SFPs to support children’s oral language development in their classrooms involving all parents and children (whole classroom approach). Figure 5.1 describes the steps. Each step requires teachers to explore perspectives to adapt their behavior to the needs and resources of parents in their classroom (see Chapters 3 and 4). FIGURE 5.1: Seven steps for teachers to engage parents in AHL Phase Steps for teachers Establish School-Family Partnerships (SFPs) in support of child language development 1. Assess the HLE 2. Involve parents and colleagues in Family-School Partnership procedures in support of child language development 3. Build reciprocal relationships with all parents Implement intervention activities 4. Arrange weekly parent-child activities adapted to capacities of (lower-educated) parents (using Step 1 to 3) Stimulate oral language support 5. Stimulate role development 6. Prioritize the use of language 7. Expand children’s language The first three principles aim to align teachers’ and parents’ needs and resources as partners for their joint interventions, which is considered as an important condition for establishing implementation quality (De la Rie, 2018; Meyers, Durlak, & Wandersman, 2012). In Step 1, teachers assess the HLE to understand families’ needs and the resources they can draw on (Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005; Hutchins et al., 2013). Teachers map out parents’ abilities (e.g., educational levels, literacy skills, language proficiency), learn about family practices, and look for opportunities to enhance parent-child interactions (e.g., playing games, shared reading) (Landry, Smith, Swank, & Gutentag, 2008). Step 2 requires teachers to critically review their existing parent procedures and make individualized action plans to develop goal-directed SFPs in line with parental resources (Epstein & Sanders, 2006; Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005).