Martine van der Pluijm

78 Chapter 3 TABLE 3.5: Percentages of parental involvement before and after implementation Teacher Parents have eye contact with teacher Parents have exchanges with teacher Parents enter classroom before after before after before after 1 (grade 1) 85% 100% 31% 38% 69% 100% 2 (kindergarten) 56% 100% 44% 56% 31% 67% 3 (preschool) 80% 90% 30% 60% 80% 90% 4 (grade 2) 30% 60% 15% 25% 15% 45% 5 (kindergarten) 71% 95% 14% 19% 33% 57% 6 (kindergarten) 50% 45% 18% 23% 41% 41% 7 (kindergarten) 25% 100% 7% 31% 31% 81% 8 (grade 2) 19% 75% 0% 19% 13% 25% 9 (kindergarten) 71% 95% 14% 19% 33% 57% 10 (grade 2) 13% 39% 5% 22% 13% 39% Parents of children in all classrooms (except classroom of teacher 6) had more eye contact with teachers and entered the classroom more often after implementation of design principle 3. Parents in all ten classrooms increased their exchanges with the teacher. As might be expected due to children’s increased autonomy around the age of seven (grade 2), parents went into their children’s classrooms (teachers 4, 8, 10) less frequently, compared to other classrooms with younger children. Observations before and after implementation of the fourth design principle [Arrange regular interactive parent-child activities] Table 3.6 shows the percentages of parental involvement during parent-child activities and their duration (the classrooms of teacher 5 and 6 are excluded as these teachers stopped implementation). Parents’ participation during parent-child activities increased in seven of the eight classrooms that implemented the fourthdesignprinciple. Percentages of participationafter implementation ranged from 40% to 95%. Before implementation, there were no parent-child activities in two grade 2 classrooms (teachers 8, 10), but after implementation, approximately half of the parents were involved in activities. The duration of parental participation in the parent-child activities in each of the eight classrooms increased after implementation. The duration of participation (until the first parent left) varied from 11.36 to 33.18 minutes. We observed a decrease in one classroom (1). However, parent participation in this teacher’s classroom was very high during the first observation. Observations showed that this classroom had the highest and most stable parent participation, except for this moment of observation.