Martine van der Pluijm

164 Chapter 6 investigating role, which appeared more time consuming than planned. Some teachers were not able to cope, particularly those that felt overwhelmed by personal circumstances (see Chapter 4). Nonetheless, this research shows that it is rewarding to participate in this intensive journey. Other studies that chose an open-ended approach to guide teacher behavior offer similar observations (e.g., Bradley & Reinking, 2011; Juuti & Lavoonen, 2006; Stokhof, 2018). Lower-educated parents in a whole classroom approach In this thesis, we designed an integrated program with lower-educated parents in support of their children’s language development, using a whole classroom approach (i.e., including all pupils and their parents). Weekly parent-child activities in the classroom are at the center of the program. Teachers arranged activities, explained these to the parents, provided background information about why the activities stimulated children’s language development, and modeled how the activity could be carried out. Our results show increasing parent participation from pretest to posttest, resulting in approximately two-thirds of the parents being present during the weekly parent-child activities (Chapter 4) and 98% of the parents taking part in these activities at least once a month (Chapter 5). This high rate of parent participation contrasts with previous studies that evaluate whole classroom approaches of FLPs. They show low participation of specifically lower-educated parents and high attrition in combination with insufficient use of tailored delivery modes by teachers (De la Rie, 2018; Teepe, 2018). The high numbers of parent participation found in our studies can be attributed to the fact that teachers in the AHL program were intensively coached to gain insight in lower-educated parents’ backgrounds and abilities, and aligned their activities to their needs. Meyers, Durlak, and Wandersman (2012) have shown the effectiveness of aligning teachers’ interventions and parents’ needs. Based on their synthesis of implementation frameworks, they position this fit between the intervention, the interventionist, and the specific target group, as an important condition for successful implementation (see also: De la Rie, 2018). The use of reciprocal communication during parent-child activities might also have contributed to the observed high participation. This is in line with a recent study of Hannon, Nutbrown, and Morgan (2019) that shows how strong reciprocity between teachers and lower-educated parents foster high numbers of participation in their program. An additional explanation for the high rate of parent involvement in our studies may be the involvement of children in the AHL activities in the classroom. This contrasts with the parent group meetings in the previous mentioned studies in which the children were not involved. Parent participation with their child might lower the threshold, particularly for lower-educated parents. After all, the focus is clearly on engaging children and parents in activities that foster child initiatives and deemphasizes personal limitations that parents may experience. Furthermore, several parents told us that they wanted to participate because their children had explicitly invited them. These invitations were apparently an important reason for parents