Martine van der Pluijm

84 Chapter 3 The second design principle [Establish a school policy that includes SFP procedures in support of child language development] contributed to teachers formulating plans with SFP procedures and alignment with colleagues and parents. This progress was found for teachers who participated in the pilot and for other teachers in the teams. However, school principals concluded that implementing SFP procedures in support of child language development (design principle four and five) as part of school policy required more measures than possible at this moment (e.g., overcoming lack of expertise and time). Therefore, the autonomous role of teachers in planning SFP procedures in support of child development for their classroom may need more emphasis. No modifications seem to be needed for the third design principle [Establish reciprocal relationships with parents] . Our findings showed that, with additional coaching, all teachers implemented the intended behavior during informal contacts with parents and evaluated this principle as compatible, feasible, and relevant. Two teachers of one school could not conduct the introductory interviews due to inhibiting conditions (e.g., insufficient facilitation by school policy, lack of time), but reported to have spent more time on introductions during informal contacts with parents. The findings can be used to improve the implementation of the fourth design principle [Arrange regularly interactive parent-child activities]. First, coaching can contribute to overcoming barriers teachers might experience when explaining and modeling activities (see Professional Development). Second, assistance during parent-child activities contributed to teachers’ implementation of more and better individual support towards parents, such as encouraging dyads to use the home language and modeling examples of turn-taking as a participant. The assistant helped to conduct the activity successfully (e.g., preparing the activity with the teacher, inviting parents into the classroom), particularly by taking care of the children when the parent could not be present. However, despite these adaptations, four teachers still had mixed feelings, three of who decided to stop applying this principle. Each of these teachers reported that the fourth (and fifth) design principle was not very relevant for their population. The other teacher decided to invest in further implementation, but maintained her mixed feelings and expressed doubts of parents’ abilities (e.g., limited Dutch language proficiency). In contrast, the other teachers found that this principle was relevant for all teachers of young children (aged 3 to 8), regardless of parental education levels or age group. They also claimed that more leadership of school principals might be needed to improve teachers’ efforts to involve parents in their child’s language development. Regarding the fifth design principle [Stimulate language strategies to support the parent-child interaction] , our findings showed that the realization of this principle could be improved by reinforcing interactive parental roles and preserving child initiatives. Observations of parents and children in classrooms revealed interactive patterns of parents directing the child and