Martine van der Pluijm

85 Creating partnerships – a formative evaluation asking questions with no other goal than to assess children’s knowledge, instead of stimulating language use. This directive interaction style resulted in less use of language by the child and less playfulness. Interviews with parents indicated that parents prioritized knowledge assessment. Parents shared their practices at home about how they structured child learning (e.g., strict schedules for schoolwork at home) and their beliefs about the importance of homework to improve child learning. These findings are in line with other studies demonstrating that many parents might prefer directive communication resulting in the inhibition of child initiatives (e.g., Pomerantz, Moorman, & Litwack, 2007). Teachers’ sessions with parents about the aims and backgrounds of parent-child activities helped to stimulate parents to support child initiative. This finding that lower-educated parents can benefit from relevant knowledge about child development is in line with the literature (e.g., Rowe et al., 2016; Wasik & Sparling, 2012). Based on these findings, dividing the fifth design principle into three principles that aim to improve teachers’ focus on supporting parental role development is a possible improvement. First, we should focus on exchanging role perceptions and beliefs and aligning the roles of parents and teachers (Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005; Sheridan et al., 2011). Second, we should focus on stimulating playful interactions that prioritize the use of language by asking questions and using scaffolding (Dickinson, Darrow, Ngo, & D’Souza, 2009; Pepper & Weitzman, 2009; Wasik & Sparling, 2012). Finally, we should focus on expanding language during these playful interactions, using strategies to extend children’s use of words and decontextualized language. These strategies are known to be beneficial for children’s language and literacy development (Reese et al., 2010a; Rowe, 2012; Van Kleeck, 2008). Professional development In our study, we developed important ways to motivate teachers to improve their relationships with lower-educated parents, acknowledging teachers’ professional autonomy (Deci & Ryan, 2000). First, continuous exchanges of perspectives between practitioners and researchers stimulated teachers to change their behavior. This reciprocity provided teachers with options that contributed to their knowledge and practice. In turn, researchers learned about the perspectives and practices of teachers and how their learning can be developed. Teachers and researchers participated in reciprocal learning processes in workshops, classrooms, design teams, and other moments of contact (e.g., informal contacts, email). Second, situated learning (Korthagen, 2010; Lave & Wenger, 1991) contributed to teachers’ motivation and feelings of self-efficacy in their relationship with parents. When teachers were reluctant to implement the fourth design principle (e.g., explaining and modeling parent- child activities to parents), we used the context to motivate teachers to take small steps and experiment. For example, during the implementation of the fourth design principle, we modeled the desired teacher behavior in the classroom and evaluated opportunities and possible improvements with teachers and parents. Additionally, we encouraged teachers to