The analysis of advice in this chapter rests upon commercially produced, best-selling child-raising and reading advice texts, as well as the few available that were distributed locally in parent newsletters and government issued pamphlets and booklets. With the exception of the United States’ based Parents’ Magazine, which absorbed Mothers’ Magazine in 1929, there were relatively few consistent sources of child-raising advice to consult during this time period, and even fewer references to reading advice, let alone the broader notion of “literacy.” Indeed, as in previous decades, literacy advice was more specifically advice to promote children’s reading; the two terms were often equated. While the analysis in this chapter focuses on the literacy advice circulating at the time, perhaps with the exception of the best selling texts of Flesch (1955) and Doman (1964), it cannot be assumed that this advice was accorded by individual parents the same importance as it was by educators or researchers. The sources consulted for analysis of advice included Chatelaine magazine, Parents’ Magazine in the United States, the first editions of Spock’s (1946; 1957) Baby and Child Care, The Department of National Health and Welfare of Canada (1949) Canadian Mother and Child (1949) and The Department of National Health and Welfare of Canada (1950) Up the Years From One to Six (developed and distributed freely to Canadian mothers until the 1980s by the Canadian Department of National Health and Welfare), and the newsletters of the Canadian Home and School Federation (CHSF), titled Canadian Home and School and its forerunner, Food for Thought. I conduct more detailed discursive analysis of commercial best sellers such as Flesch’s Why Johnny Can’t Read (1955) and Doman’s (1964) Teach Your Baby to Read, as well as Nancy Larrick’s (1958, 1964, 1975) A Parents’ Guide to Children’s Reading, because they appeared in at least two editions and represented key shifts and currents in popular and academic debates about the role of parents and particularly mothers in their children’s literacy development.

The table on the following page summarizes the domestic literacy management roles for mothers embedded in literacy advice from 1950 to 1965, and its links to mothering discourses. The chapter begins with an overview of literacy advice from 1929 to 1950, followed by a more detailed analysis in the years 1950 to 1965 as literacy advice to mothers spiked in popular magazines.