because when …she reads, she don't really read, she's looking at the pictures. So sometimes, I'll cover up the picture and say, "now read"…And then I usually ask after they're done reading, one page, "so what do you think it said there?" And they usually tell me.

Michelle, Natalie, Andrea and Julie, similar to Jane, concentrate more on how accurately the words are read and place less emphasis on text comprehension. Michelle's method for helping with reading is to "cover the picture and they say the word." She admits that this technique goes against the approach she had been taught to use, but she is not comfortable following what was recommended. That is, "they say that you should let them look at the picture to get an idea, but so well…I don't do that." Likewise, Natalie outlines how she reads with her sons by, "follow[ing] the words with my finger, a pencil…whatever. But him, he looks at the pictures. For – for the answers. And so does his brother. He'll look more - They guess more than they sound out. They should be sounding out words that they don't know."

Andrea recognizes the importance of education and sees the key as supporting her children in learning to read. She describes how she helps her daughter to read, "What I try to do is if she can't get a word within a couple of seconds, I'll tell it to her and then I'll go back to it." According to Andrea, the more important part of reading was pronouncing the words in the story correctly; she pays no attention to assessing her daughter's comprehension of the text or extending her thinking in any way. Likewise, Julie has expectations for how her son should read and becomes upset when he reads too quickly and he is not articulating the words clearly, "It's like a computer. I say 'Bud, slow down, slow down 'cause I said, 'when you read fast, you're not catching the words that are on the book'…Because I find when he reads too fast, he's not pronouncing his words clearly and he's just tstststststs."

Beth is one of the few who believe that the most important part of reading is to "know what's the story's about" or focusing on comprehension of the text. When Beth's children read books from school, they often talk to Beth about the stories after they finish, particularly the eldest daughter who she feels is "really interested in reading." In a segment of her videotaped interaction on story-reading with her daughters, Beth demonstrates her reading strategy. She waits briefly if the child pauses or hesitates in reading a word, before providing the word for the child to repeat. On one occasion, it was noted that Beth used a gesture for the word "hand" to help her daughter to guess the word before telling her the word directly.