The parents in the study consistently report that typically the three books that their children borrow from their weekly class visits to the school library are read to them at bedtime. Parental reading styles range from concentrating on the text of the book while providing few comments or questions to a high level of verbal participation with their children around the book, including comments linking the book to the child's real-life.

Reading together affords opportunities for parents to extend literacy activities and for their children to use language in literate ways. Julie stresses that parents "should want to be interested in wanting to read to their children, not just leave it up to the teachers." Natalie reads or tells original bedtime stories a few times a week to her boys while Jill considers bedtime stories a privilege that her son earns for good behaviour that she defines as "if he listens and does as he is told." In his case, he has stories anywhere from one to five nights a week. Jane and Andrea offer stories unconditionally every night to their children. Michelle also speaks about reading her children bedtime stories on a regular basis. Beth does not routinely read bedtime stories to her three children, but generally leaves that task to her husband Doug, who reads to them from time to time. Doug emphasizes that he read more frequently to the children when they were younger and now that they are older and involved in more activities, he does not have as much time to read stories to them.

In the videotaped interaction, Beth reads a story to her children. She makes a few spontaneous comments about the book that she is reading; however, these are not at the appropriate level for her children to grasp or to allow them to respond. For example, when her daughter has a picture of an elephant, she jokes about it and refers to the animal being a "good picture of [candidate] from the [political] party."