Dick and Jane books

 

Dick and Jane books were created by William S. Gray and Zerna Sharp. Before the early readers of Dick and Jane, schools lacked supplies so kids had to bring a book from home. Often, the only book that children had at home to bring was the bible. Most schools in the early 19th century were one room for all ages and abilities. This meant that phonics were very popular. Teaching reading was basically teaching how to pronounce letters and words individually.

 

Things began to change when William McGuffey created the first textbook in 1836. It had four levels and had content from stories, poems, oratories, and prayers. In the 1870s, religious texts were removed as immigrants brought different religions.

 

Later,John Dewey created new ideas about the best way to teach reading. He claimed that using children’s experiences to teach them would be most effective. William S. Gray (one of the writers of Dick and Jane books) was a part of the same movement. Gray was the head of the school of Education at the University of Chicago. He then got scouted by Scott, Foreman and Company to make a new school reading curriculum.

 

The theory:

Most children had trouble sounding out words, so Gray and Sharp thought that children would do better with the “whole-word” or “look-say” method, where they read the entire word before sounding it out. They also believed that children could become too overwhelmed with too many new words quickly. So, they only added a new word every third page. Because of this, the events in the books were very simple, and the words were extremely repetitive.

 

-Each page had a simple vocabulary with illustrations about what was happening

-Teachers got guides about each of the vocabularies in the books, and cards to teach the -pronunciation, so children could recognize each word.

-There were books up to grade 9, but the early books were most popular

-In the 1980s, almost 80 percent of primary school classrooms used the books

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Their world was very bland- picket white fence perfect little house. Mom stays at home while dad goes to the office, It is not given a specific location. (because they wanted children from all over the U.S. to connect with it). Over time, the characters and even pets developed. The little sister went from just being "baby" to having the name Sally, and the dog got the name Puff, for example.

There were no characters of color in the beginning, until Zeke, the gardener appeared to have darker skin and hair. In the 1960s, the civil rights movement took huge strides. Lyndon Johnson (a teacher in his early career), noticed that Mexican-American students could not even dream of going to college. So in his presidency, he started funding for education materials that would be appropriate for people of color. In 1965, Dick and Jane got new neighbors that were black. It was the last series of  he books to be published, however.

 

Dick and Jane books were illustrated by Eleanor Campbell and Keith Ward. Campbell was very interested in dressing the children in the latest fashions. Later, the books were illustrated by Robert Childress (in the 50s). Then, they were illustrated and published by Richard Wiley, who created the first African American characters.

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Why do students bog down on the first R? Was an article by John Hersey in Life magazine in 1954. He believed that the Dick and Jane books were dull. He became one of the supporters of a movement that believed children needed exciting books to help them stay interested. Many people condemned the “whole word method” including Rudolf Flesch in his book “Why Johnny Can’t Read”. In response to this, Houghton Mifflin and Random house, challenged Geisel to write an interesting children’s book with only 220 words. In 1957, The Cat in The Hat happened, and it changed the world forever.​