The Dick and Jane Series – Memories of Golden Oldies

Memories of School Days Gone By: The Dick and Jane Series

Everyone remembers something unique from their childhood schooling experience. For many children through the 1930s to 1970s these memories include the popular Dick and Jane book series. Dick and Jane readers were widely used in elementary schools across Canada to coach young children towards literacy. As a result, generations of adults fondly recall Dick, Jane, Mother, Father, Spot the Dog and the many other characters of the series.

The readers featured lovely water-colour illustrations to complement the story. Dick and Jane were brought to life by several different artists throughout their publication, Eleanor Campbell and Keith Ward started the series, Robert Childress continued their work through the 1950s and Richard Wiley worked on the series in the 1960s. Wiley is credited with giving Dick and Jane their first black friend. The most striking artistic difference between the Dick and Jane series and the books of today is the more subdued colours of the pictures. Many of today’s books feature vivid, bright colours throughout (like the Berenstein Bears series).

The Dick and Jane series was published by Scott Foresman and written primarily by William S. Gray and Zerna Sharp. It was because of the writing style the series attained such great popularity. Dick and Jane’s repetitive nature made the series a valuable tool for teaching literacy through the whole word, or sight reading method. This method focused on repeated exposure to certain words to ingrain them in children’s brains. Passages such as “ This is Spot. Spot the Dog., Spot is running. Run, Spot, run.” were common and the repetition of certain words was thought to help children remember these same words later on. As phonetics came into use in the 1980s, the Dick and Jane readers with their heavy emphasis on whole word techniques and repetition fell out of use with educators.

First editions of these popular books can now fetch up to $200.00, well above their original price. The series was re-issued in 2003, although buyers are cautioned against using them as the sole method of teaching reading skills. The Evolution of Education Museum, at the corner of Marquis Road and 2nd Ave W, contains a display of Dick and Jane readers. If you are interested in reminiscing about school days gone by, or sharing this or other school experiences with younger family members, be sure to stop my the museum this summer between 10 am and 6 pm any day of the week.

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