Martine van der Pluijm

21 General introduction Adapting to lower-educated parents in support of child language development Identifying e ective activities and strategies Designing the AHL program Assessing the impact of the AHL program Re ecting on At Home in Language Chapter 5: Summative evaluation of parents’ perceptions and behavior Chapter 4: Summative evaluation of teachers’ perceptions and behavior Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Review study Chapter 3: Formative study Chapter 6: Summary and general discussion FIGURE 1.1: Structure of the thesis Identifying effective activities and strategies (Chapter 2) In Chapter 2, we present a systematic review study to identify activities and strategies that support lower-educated parents to promote their young children’s oral language development effectively. Complementary, we establish the effectiveness of the modes of delivery by teachers that are effective for the target population. The central research questions are: 1) What are effective activities and strategies that can be used by lower-educated parents to promote their children’s oral language development? And 2): What are effective modes of delivery of these activities and strategies? We analyzed 28 studies to examine the effects of interventions for lower-educated parents on oral language development of their young children (aged 3 to 8). Designing the AHL program (Chapter 3) In Chapter 3, we show the design of a prototype of the AHL program, comprising a series of principles (partly derived from the review study) for establishing partnerships between school and lower-educated parents and for encouraging rich parent-child interactions. The main research question is: What modifications of the prototype are needed to contribute to sustainable SFPs directed at lower-educated parents and their young children’s language development?