I recorded my feelings and thoughts about what I observed and raised questions in informal notes on one side of the page separate from the descriptions, as I reflected on the events both during and after the observation. Later, I typed some of my notes in a word processing program, elaborated upon my assumptions and emerging insight while looking for patterns and themes. I then organized my notes by putting those pieces that appeared related into files on the computer and made some tentative interpretations, expanding significantly on some parts.

Parent journals

Parents were given semi-structured journals [see Appendix G] during the first interview and instructed on their use. This included a written explanation of a literacy event, with examples. They were asked to either write or audiotape daily entries for one week. The use of audio recorded diaries has been used successfully in a study with adolescents (J. Steele, personal communication, September 17, 1997), but none of the participants in my study chose this method for the data collection, opting instead to handwrite their entries.

Their journals chronicle their lives by providing a snapshot in time. The contents for each entry are a modification of those used by Ross, Rideout and Carson (1994) in their study of personal caregiving. This involved describing the literacy event to determine the activities parents define as literacy-related, naming the purpose of the activity to reveal cognitive processes used to define the activity, providing any thoughts and feelings about the activity which identified an affective dimension, documenting any co-occurring activities to expose the context within which activities occur and the level of attention given to the literacy activity and, finally, evaluating the activity to reveal the consequences as stressful, pleasurable or other. According to Marshall and Rossman (1995), a strength in this data collection technique, is in its elicitation of voice.