Home Visit Interview

Approaching the vaguely familiar house, the butterflies begin to buzz and I clutch my worn, wide ruled notebook, comforted by its familiar dimension as my fingers find their places between the coils of its spiral binding. Led by Jennifer, we climb the steps and letting herself in, she shows me into the kitchen. We are greeted by gleeful exclamations of, "Aunt Jenn" that are suddenly silenced as two pairs of eyes find me in the doorway. Jennifer beckons me further into view.

"Logan, Ethan, "Jennifer begins in her usual kindness. "This is Miracle, my friend that I told you about. She's going to ask you some questions."

Six year old Ethan scampers off out of sight as we move through the kitchen. Two and a half year old Logan returns my smile as he launches into an excited description of his new shoes.

"Miracle," he shouts with surprising articulation. "Miracle, I have two of them."

Galloping off, Logan leaves his mother Erin, Jennifer and I as we convene in the living room. Ethan climbs into "Aunt Jenn's" lap and we are quickly rejoined by Logan brandishing his shoes that he has fit neatly over his hands. Intently listening to Logan's proud descriptions of his shoes and interjecting ululations of agreement, I am suddenly startled by Ethan's interruption and sudden presence at my side.

"I have shoes like that," he offers. With exaggerated interest I ask, "Oh, really?"

"Yeah!" he proudly answers.

Now it's Ethan's turn to disappear and in an instant there are two boys before me brandishing identical pairs of shoes slipped over their hands. Soon, I was bouncing back and forth between excited conversations as both boys volleyed for my attention. Rescuing my notebook from the sea of toys that had accumulated on my lap and finding the page that held my interview questions I asked, "Well, can I ask you those questions now?" Just as Logan leaned forward onto the notebook answering, "Yeah!" Ethan folded back towards "Aunt Jenn."

"Logan, do you have some favorite books?" I inquire with a smile.

"Yes!" he declares and jumps backwards nearly falling over the elaborate racetrack set up on the floor behind him.

After a fit of giggles, he balances on one of the tracks and with hand thrown in the air repeats, "Yes!"

"Can you show them to me or tell me about them?" I implore.

"Yes!" he sings flinging his arms back into the air and with a leap he disappears only to emerge seconds later clutching two books above his head.

Logan marches to my side and plops two books onto the couch beside me.

"Dog," Logan explains. Along with some unintelligible chatter, he points to the dog on the cover of Biscuit's Pet and Play Halloween.

"Why do you like this book?" I ask.

"I like it," he states.

"Why?" I pry.

"After a hesitation and a slight shrug of his shoulders, Logan points to Biscuit again and repeats his “dog” proclamation. Moving 10 Bedtime Stories to the top of the pile, I ask, "What about this one? Why do you like it?"

Logan grabs the book and holding it above his head exclaims, "I like it!"

"Why?"

With the book still held high above his head, Logan points to an orange and black striped character bouncing on a coiled tail.

"Who is that?" his mother interjects.

Bringing the book down in front of him he looks closely and says, "Tiger."

"Tiger," I repeat and Logan nods.

"When do you read these?" I ask holding the books.

Logan replies by saying what sounds like, "The pumpkin man eats pickles!" while pointing to the Jack-o-lantern on the cover of Biscuit's Pet and Play Halloween. Repeating his thought, I expect Logan to elaborate, but he merely nods. Before I have the chance, his mother rephrases my question for me, "What time do you read?"

Logan moves towards his mother answering, "Nigh time!"

"Who reads to you?" I ask.

Pointing to Jennifer and giggling, Logan replies, "Aunt Jenn."

"Aunt Jenn," I repeat questioningly expecting Logan to elaborate, but he just nods in agreement.

Again, before I am able to form my question, his mother intercedes, "Who else reads to you, Logan?"

"Mommy," he happily replies pointing to her.

"I read to him," offers Ethan who has since left Jennifer's lap and has slowly crept to the center of the room.

"You read to your brother, Ethan?" I ask encouragingly. "How very nice of you!"

Still focused on Logan, his mother asks, "Who else reads to you?"

"Brother," Logan says as he runs over to his brother flinging his arms around his neck.

Peeling Logan's arms from his neck Ethan offers, "I have a favorite book. I'll get it."

Ethan disappears into one of the doorways along a short hallway. Quickly emerging, he trots over and unloads a Clone Wars Game Guide magazine next to me over the armrest of the couch.

Immediately noticing the magazine that Ethan has chosen as his favorite book, his mother sounds her objections. "Come on Ethan. You have a ton of books in that room of yours and you bring out the game magazine."

Turning to address me she adds, "He has so many books at his reading level in there that we read every night. If you would have asked him during the school year when we were doing the AR [accelerated reader] program, he would have shown you those books."

"It's summer time. This is fine," I assure her. "I'd expect to get different answers than if I'd asked them during the school year in a classroom."

Moving my attention again with Ethan I ask, "Why did you pick this out as your favorite?"

"I like the game. The Clone Wars game for Wii is really fun." Ethan explains as he absently flips through the pages of the magazine.

"How do you use this magazine with the game?" I ask.

"To play powerful stuff so you can look at the pictures. You can change different sizes and different clothes." As Ethan explains he points to pictures displaying different character options.

Mentally preparing to ask my next question, my reassurances to Erin echo in my mind and I realize how inappropriate they are for this setting. Curiously, I ask anyway.

"Ethan, think about when you were at school this year. Would you like to have more or less time in class to spend reading?"

"More," Ethan answers without much thought.

"Really?" I ask betraying my surprise. "Why?"

"Because it's fun," Ethan pauses closing the magazine. "Because I like reading. I like to read to my friends and to my teacher. Everyone gets to have a chance."

Satisfied, I move onto my last question. "Do you enjoy learning new things from books?"

Tilting his head to the side and contorting his face, deep in thought, Ethan pauses then flatly answers, "No."

Beating me to a response again, Erin intervenes, "Oh, come on. Think about the animal books, insect books. All those books you have."

"Franklin," Ethan offers questioningly.

"Okay, what did you learn from Franklin?" I ask.

Ethan shrugs and begins to shoot cars across the floor. Joining in, Logan sends one flying towards the flat screen TV, successfully knocking the Wii sensor off the stand. Jumping to her feet, Erin sets the sensor straight and asks her boys to drive the cars in the opposite direction of the TV. Grabbing handfuls of cars the boys engage themselves in play, clearly bringing the interview to an end.

Contrasting my interview experiences, I find the differences significant but unsurprising. While interviewing seven year olds within the context of the classroom we had shared for seven months, I found the process to be smooth and productive. The information I received during the interviews proved to be quite useful in planning for next year. Having already developed relationships and established expectations with my students, I found that extensive pre-interview interactions were unnecessary. Conducting the interviews within the classroom, I found children were in an academic frame of mind, so their answers were on topic and purposeful. The benefit from the classroom interviews lies in the information gathered rather than the experience of conducting the interview.

Contrarily, preparing to interview two children with whom I was unfamiliar outside the school setting proved much more labor intensive. Finding children of the ages required by the assignment took some networking as well as coordination of schedules. Developing age appropriate questions proved perplexing until I read a research article whose survey questions I adapted. Unfortunately, including the question regarding reading at school was an obvious blunder on my part, since the question didn’t quite fit the context, but Ethan did provide a relevant answer suggesting that his reading experiences in school were memorable. Also, I was a bit unprepared and taken aback at first by the mother’s interjections that suggested her dissatisfaction with her son’s answers. Whether she was worried that I wouldn’t get the information that I needed or that she felt I would somehow make a judgment on these answers is unclear.

Forming a relationship and earning credibility in the eyes of my interview subjects was a concern. Having arrived at the house with “Aunt Jenn” certainly increased my credibility and made the interview process much easier. Time spent with Logan further increased my credibility with Ethan, inspiring his volunteered engagement in the conversation. I’ve found one can never predict and exactly prepare for encounters with children, so being able to react and adapt is essential. Certainly, the determining factor in a successful interview is having built a report with the children involved in the interview. Engaging in this wholly new experience existing beyond my comfort zone challenged my skills as a researcher. The benefit here is found in experiencing the interview rather than the information gathered.

Logan, S., & Johnston, R. (2009). Gender differences in reading ability and attitudes:
Examining where these differences lie. Journal of Research in Reading, 32(2),
199-214.