Martine van der Pluijm

133 How to support lower-educated parents? exchanges about their children’s language development. Additionally, the aim is to develop feelings of trust as a basis for parents’ relationships with teachers (Lusse, 2013; Manz et al., 2010). In the second phase, teachers implement intervention activities [i.e., Step 4: Arrange weekly parent-child activities adapted to capacities of (lower-educated) parents]. We arranged opportunities for parent-child dialogues during weekly activities (20 to 25 minutes) on a fixed day in the week. Parents join these parent-child activities, leading to a routine. Examples are talk and play activities that stimulate talking about the home environment (e.g. about family members, who they are and what they enjoy doing together), or require the use of senses (e.g. identifying fruits on the table, touching them, removing one, and then guessing which fruit was removed). Teachers provide parents with a guiding (open) question (e.g., “Who am I?” or “Which fruit is gone?” ). Step 5: Stimulate parental role development Step 6: Prioritize the use of language Step 7: Expand children’s language Teachers explain and model how parents can: - follow the child perspective by encouraging the child and using sensitive communication (non-verbal and verbal). - use turn-taking to interact with the child and provide time to think and use language Teachers explain and model how parents can: - prioritize the use of language by naming (e.g. objects, persons) and asking challenging (open) questions. - use sca olding to support the child to encourage the use of more language instead of parents taking over the activity Teachers explain and model how parents can: - expand their children’s language by extending their sentences. - use questions about children’s experiences and opinions to stimulate decontextualized language FIGURE 5.2: AHL oral language and responsive communication strategies Teachers intensify oral language support in the third phase [Steps 5 to 7 i.e., Stimulate role development, Prioritize the use of language, and Expand language] by introducing language strategies (see Figure 5.2 for the strategies). First, teachers invite parents to exchange beliefs about oral language development and emphasize the importance of parental roles. Parents are informed about the need to sensitively encourage their child to talk freely without intervening based on beliefs about what is right or wrong and prioritize the use of language (Wasik & Sparling, 2012). Teachers show parents how to expand language (Boyce et al., 2010). They are