Martine van der Pluijm

129 How to support lower-educated parents? Step 3 aims to ensure that all parents feel invited and are recognized as partners (Manz et al., 2010; Sheridan, Knoche, & White, 2019). Teachers adopt an open attitude and invite parents to share information about their family environment. This way, teachers can detect resources and capacities to build upon (Scott, Brown, Jean-Baptiste, & Barbarin, 2012; Van Regenmortel, 2009). Teachers use reciprocal communication strategies to establish dialogues with parents and align teachers’ and parental goals to jointly support the child (Anderson et al., 2017; Lusse, Van Schooten, Van Schie, Notten, & Engbersen, 2019b). In Step 4, parents become involved in parent-child activities in the classroom to experience the value of interaction for their children’s language development. For this aim, teachers use easy talk and play activities (i.e., requiring no specific knowledge or skills), applying both sensitive communication (e.g., encouraging) and oral language strategies (e.g., asking open questions) to establish interaction. Teachers use various methods of delivery of these activities and strategies adapted to the skills and experiences of parents, such as modeling (Bandura, Blanchard, & Ritter, 1969) and building upon familiar themes (e.g., talking about family, going to the grocery store) (Van der Pluijm et al., 2019). Encouraging parents to use their preferred language with their child at home is recommended as it can help children and parents to feel confident (Agirdag, 2014; Anderson et al., 2017; Boyce et al., 2010; Cummins, 2000) and enhance child language learning in both the minority and majority language (Cummins, 1979; Dijkstra, Kuiken, Jorna, & Klinkenberg, 2016; Hammer et al., 2014). Steps 5 to 7 aim to encourage parents to intentionally stimulate their children’s oral language development. Step 5 emphasizes parental role development. Many lower-educated parents have little knowledge about strategies that enhance their child’s oral language development (Rowe et al., 2016; Suskind et al., 2017). Parents acquire this knowledge when they act out their role in supporting their child, for example, by following their children’s initiatives and by learning how to take turns (Landry, Smith, Swank, & Gutentag, 2008; Leung, Hernandez, & Suskind, 2018). Frequent and successful experiences can contribute to feelings of self-efficacy when parents support their children’s development (Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005; Wasik & Sparling, 2012). Step 6 emphasizes the need to value children’s efforts to use language instead of directing the child to produce the right answer or the perfect product (Dickinson, Darrow, Ngo, & D’Souza, 2009; Pepper &Weitzman, 2004; Wasik & Sparling, 2012). Parents are introduced to strategies to encourage child initiatives, such as asking open-ended questions and scaffolding (Landry et al., 2008). Finally, Step 7 introduces parents to strategies for expanding children’s use of language (Van der Pluijm et al., 2019), such as extending the use of words (Boyce et al., 2010; Kupzyk, Banks, & Chadwell, 2016) and asking questions that require the use of decontextualized speech (Reese et al., 2010; Rowe, 2012; Van Kleeck, 2008). Continuous provision of examples and opportunities for using such strategies and experiencing the benefits for children can inspire lower-educated parents to use these strategies themselves (see Chapter 3).