His imaginary games give you scope for providing words, too. Equipped with a tiny pair of gloves and a huge umbrella, he announces, “I’m Daddy.” He knows that his father often goes out and he is obviously playing a Daddy-going-out game in his head. “Is Daddy going to the office or is he going for a walk?” you ask. You have supplied him with name-labels for two of the places Daddy might go; you have helped him elaborate his thinking with his own game. (Leach, 1978, p. 415)

For both Larrick and Leach, the work involved in supporting children’s reading readiness required preparation, planning, and mother’s willingness to learn:

If you are hazy about the old rhymes and songs, get one or more Mother Goose books and recordings and brush up on words and melodies so you can let them flow from memory without having to look at the book while you tie your baby’s shoes. (Larrick, 1975, p. 21)

Indeed an important shift in the intensive mothering discourse during this time was from the view that mothers were natural teachers of language and literacy, to the view that mothers required specific expert intervention, and a willingness to “teach themselves” how to be good teachers. Rather than a “natural” talent, domestic pedagogy became a sphere in which women were to reflect critically on their practice and strive to improve. In another section on books, in the same manual, Leach advised that:

Books are going to be vital to your child’s education. Help him or her to make friends with them and learn to value them. Being read to is a lasting pleasure for every child. Take it slowly; teach yourself to adapt difficult words or put in explanations as you go. Show the pictures and encourage talk about what is happening. (Leach, 1978, p. 416)

These professional-level skills involved in reading to children appeared in the 1980s as required of parents if they were to fulfill their duties as parents. Reading, and story book reading in particular, became not only a major focus of research into the academic achievement gap plaguing schools, but a cornerstone of parenting advice whereby mothers emerged as the single most important person determining children’s academic abilities. Jim Trelease (1982) opened the first of four editions of his popular The Read Aloud Handbook with an excerpt from the poem “The Reading Mother” by Strickland Gillian:

You may have tangible wealth untold; Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be, I had a Mother who read to me. (Trelease, 1982, p. 17)