The study of the role parents play in the reading development of their children requires a methodology that is unobtrusive, humane, objective, and natural. Ethnography, with its corresponding technique of participant observation, offers these characteristics. The distinctive features of an ethnographic research design include: formulation of the research problem, selection of an area or society to study, an exploratory phase of ethnography, and the hypothesis testing phase. This last should make use of five basic guidelines: multiplicity of instances, of indexes, of tests, of hypotheses, and of phase-specific conditions. Systematic use of the methodology and design of ethnography should be very helpful in exploring the role of parents in reading. (TJ)