Martine van der Pluijm

175 General discussion stimulate parents and children to talk freely and feel appreciated, ensuring reciprocity and preventing the feeling of inspection (Lusse et al., 2019). According to personal preferences, teachers can share some information about their home environment. An important advantage of home visits is the opportunity for teachers to be introduced to the home languages and cultures of families and the resources in their environment. This knowledge can inspire teachers when developing parent-child activities [Step 4: Arrange weekly parent-child activities adapted to lower-educated parents] . Our findings showed that activities that include aspects of the family environment contribute to parent engagement in the program and to interaction (Chapter 5). Teachers can integrate elements of the home environment in their parent-child activities that stimulate language and literacy development. They can invite parents and children to present their home languages, acknowledging a family’s heritage, often referred to as ‘translanguaging’ (Creese & Blackledge, 2015; Garcia, 2009). In our studies, most dyads that participated in the parent-child activities were bilingual, and schools were hesitant in stimulating parents and children to use their home language during these activities. This absence of explicit encouragement to talk the home language can decrease the quality of parent-child interactions. Therefore, teachers in our research were coached to encourage the use of the home language, leading to more interaction (Chapter 3). According to several studies, this is also beneficial for both first and second language acquisition (Cummins, 1981; Dijkstra, Kuiken, Jorna, & Klinkenberg, 2016; Hammer et al., 2014). Examples of activities that can further encourage the use of translanguaging are exchanging stories or songs from different cultures and talking about what words mean in different languages. One more element that teachers can integrate in their activities is the use of print that is available at home. Teachers can invite children and parents to bring written texts from home related to their daily customs (e.g., advertisement flyers of the local supermarket, a post card they received, a recipe). Teachers can stimulate talking by using this printed material (i.e., in the home or majority language), by giving dyads experiences to build upon and deemphasizing the need for parental literacy skills (Hart & Risley, 1999; Roggman, Boyce, & Innocenti, 2008). Parent- child activities can be designed with these familiar materials, such as using advertisement flyers to decide what groceries to buy or creating books that illustrate family routines in the home environment (Boyce et al., 2010). Lower-educated parents are likely to be familiar with the content of these activities, and this can positively affect child language and literacy development (Jacobson, Degener, & Purcell-Gates, 2003). Enhancing parent-child interactions Teachers can further enrich parent-child interactions by implementing specific talk and play activities of a joyful nature and repeated opportunities for parents to become familiar with