Martine van der Pluijm

51 Activities and strategies – a review of empirical interventions especially for lower-educated parents in experimental studies. The combination of strategies emphasized (oral language and responsive communication) and the activity type (talk and play) may make the intervention effective for children’s oral language development. The read and write activities directed at lower-educated parents and heterogeneous groups used print and code awareness strategies. Studies that emphasized these strategies reported no results for children’s oral language development. Therefore, we conclude that print and code awareness strategies in combination with read and write activities may not be effective for children’s oral language development. We now answer our second research question (i.e., What are effective modes of delivery for these activities and strategies?). Our findings show that delivery is most effective when it is flexible and tailored to the specific backgrounds and personal experiences of families, especially when interventions are adapted to activities that occur in families’ homes. Five studies adapted the intervention to families’ home environments (see Table 2.3). These are the same five studies that used talk and play activities and oral language and responsive communication strategies for lower-educated parents (see Table 2.4, left side). As previously discussed, all five reported significant effects on oral language development, based on 19 experimental comparisons. Our findings also show that the delivery of activities and strategies are more effective for lower- educated parents when parents and children are involved in training sessions. Four of the five talk and play studies and one shared reading study (5) showed positive effects with lower- educated parents when using this mode of delivery (see Table 2.3). In contrast, two shared reading studies that did not involve the child during coaching sessions showed no effects on oral language development. Three studies with no control condition directed at shared reading that involved the child during coaching showed a positive effect on children’s oral language proficiency. However, this delivery mode is less effective for read and write activities. One experimental read and write study reported positive effects on oral language development, and a study with no control condition showed growth. Both involved the child during coaching sessions. The remaining four read and write studies that used this mode of delivery with lower-educated parents (two experimental studies and two studies without control condition) showed no effect on children’s oral language development. Therefore, we can conclude that child participation in coaching is effective for lower-educated parents, especially when used in combination with talk and play or shared reading activities. Discussion This review aims to contribute to the knowledge about the effectiveness of activities and strategies that promote children’s oral language development that can be used by lower- educated parents and the most effective delivery modes for these activities and strategies. First, our findings show that talk and play activities seem more effective for lower-educated parents