Martine van der Pluijm

62 Chapter 3 2011; Van der Pluijm, Van Gelderen, & Kessels, 2019). A major problem is that teachers have little knowledge about families’ backgrounds (Banks & Banks, 2004; Manz, Hughes, Barnabas, Bracaciello, & Ginsburg-Block, 2010; Van der Pluijm, 2014), leading to a lack of understanding of their needs in terms of supporting children’s language development (Hutchins, Greenfeld, Epstein, Sanders, & Galindo, 2013; Scott, Brown, Jean-Baptiste, & Barbarin, 2012). These problems have also been reported by teachers using Family Literacy Programs (FLPs), which are specifically aimed at involving parents and children together to improve children’s language and literacy development (Hannon, 2003). Teachers engaged in these programs still experience serious difficulties in involving lower-educated parents in program activities and in following its guiding principles (Powell & Carey, 2012; St. Pierre et al., 2003; Teepe, 2018). For example, the use of modeling, a technique for demonstrating program activities to lower- educated parents is a problem (De la Rie, 2018). Moreover, teachers often tend to select activities that are tailored to higher-educated parents without considering the abilities of lower-educated parents (e.g., lack of experience with certain types of activities and literacy problems) (Boyce Innocenti, Rogman, Jump Norman, & Ortiz. 2010; Reese Leyva, Sparks, & Grolnick. 2010a; Van der Pluijm et al., 2019). These problems can explain why FLPs often have little effect on children’s language development, particularly on children from lower-educated family backgrounds (De la Rie, 2018; Mol, Bus, De Jong, & Smeets, 2008; Reese, Sparks, & Leyva, 2010b). The mismatch between language interventions for lower-educated families and their needs and perspectives has led to calls for partnership approaches with more adapted support (Anderson, McTavish, & Kim, 2017; Manz et al., 2010; Van Steensel, Herppich, McElvany, & Kurvers, 2012). Programs that prepare teachers to establish these School-Family Partnerships (SFPs) in support of children’s language development should therefore acknowledge the complexity of the skills required (Epstein & Sanders, 2006; Goodall & Voorhaus, 2011) and offer teachers a frame of reference consisting of adequate knowledge, sensitive communication skills, and empathy (cf., Walker, 2019). Furthermore, such programs are most effective when they are situated in the authentic education context and in close collaboration with their main users (Epstein & Sanders, 2006; Kessels, 1999; McKenney & Reeves, 2012; Van Veen, Zwart, & Meirink, 2012). Against this background, we developed a prototype for a program that aims to professionalize teachers in building SFPs with lower-educated parents to contribute to a richer language environment for their young children. The prototype is based on five provisional design principles. This study shows how the prototype was used in a series of school contexts and how it can be better adapted to the needs and resources of teachers and lower-educated parents.