Martine van der Pluijm

173 General discussion Third, as discussed in this thesis (e.g., Chapter 2), knowledge of parental education levels is an important criterion for teachers to understand the HLE. Other factors of parental socioeconomic status, such as immigrant status, home language, or income can also affect the HLE. We recommend that data is collected to improve our understanding of how these variables affect the HLE. Parental literacy (Sénéchal, 2012) is underexposed in the literature (Manz et al., 2010; Reese et al., 2010; Van Steensel et al., 2019). In our research, we reduced the need for parental literacy skills during our talk and play activities and coached teachers to view parental literacy skills as one of the indicators in their HLE assessments (see Study 3, Chapter 4, class inventory lists). Teachers were also coached to observe signals of illiteracy during their contacts with parents (e.g., problems with reading child reports, parents who told the teacher about reading problems). Future research could develop instruments to assess parental literacy skills in the context of parent-child activities (e.g., problems with shared reading). A fourth recommendation is to use suitable methods for collecting data, since the target group of parents may have low proficiency in the majority language, literacy problems, and limited knowledge of child language development (Rowe et al., 2016). In our research activities, we anticipated these characteristics (e.g., involving translators, easy language). We noticed that parents had more difficulties answering questions than we expected (e.g., in answering on rating scales, understanding the concept of language development) (Francot et al., 2019). We also noticed that parents can easily become tired, lose concentration, and sometimes seem embarrassed when they do not understand the question or are unfamiliar with the content. Parents felt most open for dialogues during group interviews that evaluate their experiences in the classroom, where they could listen to other parents and receive help from other parents in understanding the content. Therefore, we preferred to use group interviews. Based on our experiences, we recommend researchers to carefully consider the content of instruments and the language that is used, to pilot instruments in advance with members of the target groups, and to avoid parents from becoming overcharged. If additional questionnaires are necessary, then we recommend collecting these by using interviews (if necessary with a translator), a brief set of questions, preferably close to parents’ experience (e.g., showing pictures or examples), and limited use of detailed rankings. Moreover, researchers should plan enough time to create a safe environment that allows for explanations and translations. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS The aim of this research is to contribute to both scientific knowledge and the improvement of practice by designing a solution for practitioners in the field of education. Reducing child language gaps is an urgent problem that requires research-based interventions that contain clues for scaling up (Greenwood et al., 2020; Hoff, 2013). We have reported results and