When my child starts school she will learn to read and write. If she learns to read and write at nursery school she will be a school success from the beginning. But if she’s going to learn to read and write at nursery school she’d better go to a play group first so that she gets a flying start at nursery. Maybe I can persuade the play group to take her quite soon, when she’s two and a half, but they’ll have to be able to see that she’s ready so we’d better got to the toddler group and practice play group skills…” (Leach, 1988, p. 376).

Leach went on to say that these concerns were understandable, but that it was undesirable to push children into formal learning too early, claiming, “If you let your child lead, you cannot teach him too much …the simple answer to ‘how much should I teach my child at home?’ is, “as much as your child himself invites” (p. 378). The ideal pedagogy for developing literacy skills in the home was then outlined:

Your two year old is not likely to invite you to sit down with flash cards and teach him to read, but he may well become fascinated by what the postman brings, irritated by everybody vanishing behind Sunday papers and amazed by your desire to sit and gaze at a book with no pictures in it. Let him into the secret of reading and let him decide whether to accept it as information about adult behaviour or to experiment with the idea for himself. If the reading-game takes off with advertising billboards, television slogans and road signs, by all means play it with him. Many pre-school children can recognize “exit”, “stop” and “walk” long before it occurs to anyone to teach them to read. Once your child understands what all those squiggles mean something, that they constitute a useful and enjoyable code system in older people’s lives, he may try to follow with his finger the words you read aloud to him and want his name written on everything from his door to his T-shirt. He may but he may not. It doesn’t matter either way. It is his interest in, and understanding of, the point and process of reading which will give him a head start, not the level of his skill. (p. 378)

In her 1978 manual, Leach focused on the link between talking to children and developing their learning skills for school. In 1988, this advice also included the importance of mentoring and modeling many uses and forms of print. While Leach stated that “it doesn’t matter” if children take an interest in this “code” or not, it did of course matter, or the ideal literacy behaviours of a two-year old child who “may try to follow with his finger the words you read aloud to him” would not be described in such detail. It is here too, that the view of reading in the home was not only meant to be enjoyable, but a means of getting a “head start,” though it is not clear over what or whom these gains should be made. The ideal literacy learning environment was one in which the stay-at-home mother provided an environment rich in new and interesting things, well thought-out learning opportunities, and the interesting day trips that were also a part of 1950s advice.