A review of the citations for children’s reading in the US-based Parents Magazine similarly suggested only intermittent concern for children’s reading in the 1930s. However, perhaps because the editorial board of Parents Magazine was composed of members of Columbia Teachers’ College, this magazine generally published more articles on reading and parental involvement during this period than did Chatelaine. Much advice was informed by the constructs of maturation theories that held that children should not learn to read before they were “mentally” ready. Citing Morphett and Washburn’s influential 1937 research, Williams told parents that “children must have the mental age of six years and six months in order to learn to read. In most cases it is useless to expect this accomplishment of children who are mentally younger” (Williams, 1939, p. 210). In this vein, advice emphasized the quality of children’s experiences inside and outside of school, and argued that delaying reading instruction provided more opportunities for young children in Grade One to gain the life experiences necessary to learn to read: “It is extremely difficult to derive much sense from ‘come with me to the zoo’ unless one knows what a zoo is” (p. 221). Advice assumed, and reinforced, professional-level interest and knowledge on the part of its readers in the “science” of children’s reading, as college instructors and school teachers contributed articles to popular magazines. Yet as important as it was for both mothers and fathers to be abreast of the latest reading methods used in school, they should not interfere: “Children are sensitive, and it is possible to develop in these early stages of reading either great joy and pleasure in reading, or dislike and fear. This may greatly affect later reading progress when a child starts school…[M]ost failures are due to hurrying children” (Wilson & Burke, 1943, p. 28).

Indeed, appropriate household routines that articulated with the needs of the school were considered more important than reading to children or modeling literacy practices in the home. In this way, domestic literacy management was really about managing children’s time and space in the context of the normal family. Fenner and Fishburn (1943) provided a self-guided questionnaire for mothers against which to measure their performance in supporting their children’s literacy and learning:

If Eugene has a hard time settling down to school work in the mornings, it may be that an earlier breakfast hour would result in less hurry and confusion at home. …[H]as your child too many or too few out-of-school activities? Do you provide a quiet place for home study with good light and ventilation, study equipment and freedom from interruption? (p. 125)