A key domestic literacy task was to manage baby and children’s schedules to support literacy development: “Build reading into baby’s agenda — a few minutes at least twice a day, when he’s quiet and alert, and when he’s already fed. Before naptime, after lunch, after bath and before bed are all good reading times” (p. 290). Story book reading had become a solution to the perceived need for “a sense of roots and security” in the “fast capital” work environment of the 1990s. Mothers’ domestic literacy tasks involved adhering to the all important reading routines that were linked to the ideal of the stay at home mother, captured here by Leach (1988):

If your child is age 6 or younger, a routine is just as important to him as a ritual. Suppose that Thursday afternoon is usually reserved for going to the library; a change of that routine might seem as upsetting to him as the cancellation of Christmas would. When it’s necessary to alter a routine, try to prepare him as soon as possible…alert him earlier in the day if you have to forgo his bedtime story for one night and explain why. Perhaps you can make it up to him by reading the story before his afternoon nap. (Leach, 1988, p. 23)

These themes carried over into What to Expect in the Toddler Years (Eisenberg, Murkoff & Hathaway, 1994b). In that volume, reading had its own five page section titled, “What is Important for Your Toddler to Know: Reading is Fundamental,” a reference to the source of its advice, the Reading is Fundamental Foundation in the United States.

Reading is fundamental. But what a lot of today’s television-age children never learn is that it’s also fun. It’s one thing to teach a child to read — with a few primers and a stack of flashcards anyone can do it. But it’s quite another thing to teach a child to love reading. And while most experts agree that teaching a child to read — to recognize letters and sound out words and string words into sentences — is a process best left until the child is ready, teaching a child to love reading is a process that can start long before he or she knows an “A” from a “Z.” (Eisenberg, et al., 1994, p. 90)

¹⁷ The Reading is Fundamental Foundation claims to be the first children’s literacy organization in the United States. Began in 1966 as a campaign to distribute free books to US school children, the Foundation currently holds contracts with the US Department of Education to promote access to books and children’s literacy in 50 US States, Argentina and the United Kingdom (http://www.rif.org/about/leadership/default.mspx, retrieved December 9, 2005). Supported by celebrities such as Ed Asner, Carol Burnett, and Shaquille O’Neal, the Foundation has enjoyed high visibility. In 1987 it added to its book distribution activities by developing advice for parents with over “100 tips” for promoting reading in the home. This list became a source for the What to Expect sections on reading.