Ichiro Sakamoto (1904-1987) is well known in relation to school library policy, which was a symbol of the educational "reforms" imposed by the United States after World War II; he also edited the Dohuslu Shield Jiten (Encyclopedia of Reading Guidance), and was an educational psychologist who contributed to the establishment of the Japan Reading Association. Here I will examine the processes he used in forming the concepts that underlie his reading guidance system. Drawing on social education from the time of the war, Sakamoto designed reading guidance as life guidance for young students. Sakamoto regarded libraries as American, and an incongruity between his views and the Japanese libraries arose. He sought to make a clear distinction between library and establish guidance on how and what to read for "the training of the national language". He called reading guidance “library education”, but he was dismissive of accessing library and books. Sakamoto greatly admired American psychology around the start of the Cold War, and developed a test to evaluate children's literacy. Sakamoto set the purposes of reading guidance as standardizing vocabulary and providing a kind of character building that maintained social order. He referred to the former as "dokusho" (reading) and the latter as "jinkaku" (character).  [Abstract from Etsuko Sugiyama in the March 2019 article, “Reading Instruction” During and After the War: Ichiro Sakamoto in the Journal of Japan Society of Library & Information Science, Vol. 65 (1), 1-17. 

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/jslis/65/1/_contents/-char/en