Martine van der Pluijm

54 Chapter 2 Supporting parents and children to talk about these available sources of print with emphasis on oral language and responsive communication strategies might be an effective activity for oral language development, phonological awareness, and print knowledge. Two additional aspects of adapting interventions to lower-educated parents are of interest. First, adapting the intervention language to the home language of language minorities is an important issue. All 16 studies directed at lower-educated parents reported details about ethnicity and language of the participants. All 14 studies that include language minorities adapted the intervention language to their home language (see Table 2.1: 4, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 26, 27, 28). This means that researchers recognize the importance of adapting to the family language of lower-educated parents, which contrasts with Manz et al. (2010), who concluded that the importance of ethnicity and language is overlooked in studies. Second, studies that adapt interventions to families by investing in reciprocal relationships and by stimulating dialogues to contribute to mutual understanding are considered to be effective (Bakker et al., 2013; Lusse, 2013). However, only five studies invested in these relationships (5, 10, 11, 12, 27). Four studies (4, 10, 11, 12) reported positive results and one did not (27). Based on these findings, it is not possible to draw firm conclusions about the effectiveness of this aspect of delivery. The results of this review give reason to believe that the delivery of activities and strategies is more effective for lower-educated parents when their children are involved during parent training. The effectiveness of child involvement during parent training might be explained by the opportunities it creates, such as modeling by the coach how to interact with a child, and parents imitating the trainer during interaction with their child (Jacobs, 2004). This makes trainingmeaningful andmight stimulate parents to use the strategies. Learning by experiencing seems to be an effective didactic approach for lower-educated parents, as it recognizes their experience and willingness as a dedicated parent and de-emphasizes their limited language and literacy skills (Prins & Van Horn, 2012). These experiences might also contribute to parents’ positive beliefs and feelings of self-efficacy (Wilson Toso & Gungor, 2012). Positive beliefs and feelings of self-efficacy are important prerequisites for parents to become more involved in their child’s development (Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005). Therefore, increasing parental knowledge about child development and stimulating positive beliefs about their enriching role are important for an effective delivery of interventions directed at changes in parental behavior (Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler, 1997; Wasik & Sparling, 2012). Several studies directed at lower-educated parents report positive results in children’s oral language development by organizing workshops for parents (5, 9, 10, 11, 17, 19, 22). The workshops might have contributed to the effectiveness of these interventions. However, there are also other ways