This committee began to produce advice to parents for encouraging home reading, much of it based on papers given at that and subsequent IRA conventions. For example, in congratulating an enthusiastic mother who wanted to meet with the author to discuss plans for her six-month-old daughter’s “books and reading,” Gagliardo (1967) described the ideal domestic literacy practices that produce a successful school reader. These ranged from “mother’s singing as she moved about her work” and father “eagerly singing nursery rhymes from his own childhood” (p. 5) to family visits to the zoo, walks in nature, the custom of visits to the library, and the “necessity of book ownership” (p. 7). Gagliardo’s advice reflected the view that even though domestic literacy expectations placed upon mothers were increasing, none of this was real work: “What a relief to discover that many of the activities which prepare a child for the great adventure of reading are actually part of everyday living!” (Gagliardo, 1967, p. 8). This “everyday living,” however, was of the sort associated with middle-class homes that assumed para-professional roles in relation to teachers and researchers. This was in contrast to parents who “can’t care” about their children’s reading. In the same book, Karl (1967) commented: “There are parents whose educational backgrounds are such that the value of reading is not apparent to them. There are others whose own interests are so overpowering that there is no place in their thoughts for the development of their children” (p. 37).

Literacy advice was increasing in quantity if not in diversity. The Canadian Home School Federation decided to launch a home reading campaign to mark the Canadian Centennial in 1967. This was likely the first family literacy campaign in Canada, though it went by the name of the Centennial Reading Project. According to the Canadian Home School Federation official history published in 1994, the project objectives included:

Encouraging parents to take responsibility for interesting pre-school children in pre-reading activities, providing a home bookshelf, helping to establish school and public libraries, developing a reading army of people to read to pre-schoolers or other groups, and disseminating information on children's reading (CHSF, 1994).