Martine van der Pluijm

61 Creating partnerships – a formative evaluation INTRODUCTION Parental support is critical for young children’s language and literacy development (Aikins & Barbarin, 2008; Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002; Storch & Whitehurst, 2002). The Home Language Environment (HLE), defined as the way parents engage their children in daily interactions (talking about what to cook, eat or what had happened during the day) and activities (e.g., playing games, shared reading), affects children’s language and literacy skills, which are related to (later) school performance (Leseman & De Jong, 1998; Niklas & Schneider, 2013; Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2014). The richness of HLEs in families varies (Van Steensel, 2006). Particularly lower- educated parents, with education levels of lower secondary education at most (OECD, 2015, p. 15), are challenged in providing a rich HLE for their children (Gilkerson, Richards, Warren, Montgomery, Greenwood, Oller, & Hansen, 2017; Rowe, Denmark, Harden, & Stapleton, 2016; Van Tuijl, Leseman, & Rispens, 2001). Compared to higher-educated parents, these parents tend to be less familiar with providing HLEs of sufficient quality and quantity (Leseman & De Jong, 1998; Van Steensel, 2006) and with practicing sensitive communication with their children (Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, 1994; Hart & Risley, 1995; Hoff, 2013; Mistry, Biesanz, Chien, Howes, & Benner, 2008). Particularly parents’ use of decontextualized language, referring to objects and situations that are not present in the immediate environment, is important for preventing children’s language and literacy delays (Curenton, Craig, & Flanigan, 2008; Van Kleeck, 2008; Rowe, 2012). In general, poor HLEs can be at the core of children’s language and literacy delays (Gilkerson et al., 2018; Hart & Risley, 1995). Therefore, knowledge about pupils’HLEs is important for teachers and schools when deciding on the proper conditions for language and literacy learning (Hoff, 2013). The significance of teachers’ efforts to connect to families HLEs is acknowledged in the literature (Bronfenbrenner, 1977, 1992; Epstein, 1987; Goodall & Vorhaus, 2011). Nevertheless, working with parents with lower education levels and diverse cultural backgrounds can be a struggle for many teachers (Bakker, Denessen, Dennissen, & Oolbekkink-Marchand, 2013; Jeynes, 2010; Lusse, Notten, & Engbersen, 2019a; Noel, 2016; Santoro, 2009; Waddel, 2013; Walker, 2019). Several programs have been developed to establish partnerships between schools and parents of diverse educational levels and cultural backgrounds (Sheridan, Knoche, & White, 2019; Van Voorhis, Maier, Epstein, Loyd, & Leung, 2013). These programs emphasize an inviting attitude (e.g., asking parents to be involved, making them feel welcome), transparent school procedures that establish reciprocal relationships (e.g., introductory conferences), and continuous alignment of child support between teachers and parents (Anderson & Minke, 2007; Deslandes & Bertrand, 2005; Epstein & Sanders, 2006; Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005; Lusse, Van Schooten, Van Schie, Notten, & Engbersen, 2019b; Sheridan et al., 2019). However, it is still unclear how teachers can establish partnerships to support lower-educated parents effectively in their young children’s language development (Sheridan, Knoche, Kupzyk, Edwards, & Marvin,