Talk:Dick and Jane

80% statement
Was the "80% of first graders" in the USA or elsewhere? 162.84.72.171 21:15, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Phonics statement
"For this reason, they came to be used less and less as studies supported phonics as a more effective method of gaining literacy." As a teacher, I'd like to see this cited. Some children phonics is the more effective way but as someone who was a whole language learner and never could grasp the whole phonetics concept and consistently sees preschool and kindergarteners who are unable to read using the phonetics, I would really like to see the statement that phonetics is better than whole language backed up with a source because I think that an effective teacher would have both methods available in a classroom as each child learns differently.--Starladustangel 06:06, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * As a non-teacher, I'm shocked at how poor your grammar is: run-on sentence, wrong words used, missing words, etc. Perhaps "whole word" is not so good after all?  :-)  Just having fun with ya.  The article is unclear, but studies in the 70s did support the switch to phonics (not phonetics), which is part of the reason why D&J fell into disuse (along with the books being dull and insipid).  Later studies showed it was not nearly so clear and uniform as that, as you suggest, but by then D&J were gone.  Matt Deres 15:44, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Ummm ... I was in grade 1 in 1986, and clearly remember Dick and Jane books in school, still at that point. Most people I know remember Dick and Jane from their early childhood, as well. --142.242.2.248 18:25, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm unclear as to how the Dick and Jane series is not regarded as phonics-based. Is it because of the particular words chosen? I would imagine that the series is constructed such that with each new learning level, new words are introduced that are not as phonetically recognizable. Regardless of the learning level, this is where the assistance of a teacher comes in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.211.141.159 (talk) 03:58, 19 October 2013 (UTC)


 * I was exposed to the Dick and Jane readers in the early 1960s. I have no recollection of phonics being part of them in the editions that were in use then.  My teacher used separate workbooks and flashcards to teach us phonics, but those materials were completely unrelated to the readers.  As an adult in later years I came to believe that the teacher may even have been using the phonics approach in defiance of state mandates to use the Dick and Jane readers and the "sight method" of teaching, because she had been teaching at the elementary level for many years and knew what worked and what didn't.  I also recall that with the phonics supplementation, every child in my first grade class was able to read well by the end of four months, whereas I later encountered classmates in other United States schools, trained solely with the sight method, who read very poorly by the end of high school and were stymied when they encountered unfamiliar words with more than two or three syllables.  Making the claim in this Wikipedia article that phonics was used in the Dick and Jane readers sounds patently absurd.  If it can't be documented with hard evidence, the statement should be removed. — QuicksilverT @ 21:31, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Kim and Wendy
When I was in first grade in the 1958-1959 school year, our teacher used a series of books featuring Kim (a boy) and Wendy, who had a dog named Tike (possibly spelled Tyke). There were three first grade sections in our school. One of the other classes also used the Kim and Wendy book, while the third class used Dick and Jane. I always felt a little deprived because I didn't get to read about Dick and Jane, although I did love my first grade teacher!

In 2nd and 3rd grades, my classes also used the books for these grade levels that were extensions of the Kim and Wendy series. I don't recall if any of the other classes in these grades used the 2nd and 3rd grade Dick and Jane books. The kids in my school did not stay together for these three years, and in fact I specifically remember, even after all of these years, some kids in my 2nd and 3rd grade classes who were in the first grade class that used the Dick and Jane books. So they got exposed to both series.

I have a sister who is six years younger than I am. When she attended first grade at the same school in 1964-1965, her class used updated versions of the same books my class had read. But instead of Kim and Wendy, the main characters' names were Jimmy and Sue. I'm guessing that the name Kim was discontinued because it had become more popular as a girl's name, thus possibly confusing some kids, especially girls named Kim. RSLitman 03:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank God that your teacher didn't inflict Dick and Jane on you. Learning 200 to 300 new words in a year of instruction?  What a cruel joke, considering that a well-educated high school graduate should know 20,000 to 30,000 words after 12 grades, over 800% as many as one would learn at the rate that the Dick and Jane readers presented. &mdash; QuicksilverT @ 06:51, 27 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The number of words that one can read, especially as a first-grader, should not be equated with the number of words that that person knows. 202.179.26.78 (talk) 09:56, 19 February 2013 (UTC)


 * The number of words many English-speaking young adults know at the end of 12 years of formal education is on the order of 2,000 to 3,000, entirely consistent with the rate at which words were introduced in the Dick and Jane readers. Being at a loss for words, they often resort to expletives to fill in the gaps. — QuicksilverT @ 21:36, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Dick and Jane
I remember Dick and Jane very well. What's so strange is how they were supposedly poor books to read because they weren't "phonics" readers. My sisters, brother and I were all raised on "Dick and Jane" books. We are all avid readers even now in our 50's. I don't know how anyone can possibly say that Dick and Jane books didn't help kids read. Maybe we were all GT students and didn't know it! Netters06 21:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)


 * "Dick and Jane" ruined several generations of pupils in America. I remember using the readers in grades 1-2, but the teachers only used them because they were required by the school curriculum.  They relied heavily on phonics workbooks and other materials with which the real reading skills were taught.  Every kid in my first grade class could read by Christmas.  Contrast that with teens today who can barely read in high school.  I can easily spot victims of Dick and Jane readers in my own age group, decades after finishing school, by the halting way they read, especially when they come across unfamiliar words.  The reasons for this disaster can be inferred by reading the Wikipedia article on William S. Gray, Ph.D., the principal author behind the series.  He was an academician, and apparently not fully engaged in the process of actually teaching children to read on a practical level.  His approach to "dumbing down" the reading materials and ignoring phonics resulted in pupils never quite getting the drift of reading fluently.  This article glosses over these issues. &mdash; QuicksilverT @ 06:51, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Dot and Jim
Dot and Jim were who I had when I grew up in the late 80s though I'm not sure of their vintage as we were given dittos(that's like xerox copies but crappier and blue instead of black) of the stories. Dot and Jim did seem to be probably out of the 50s or 60s though. Dot and Jim had a brother and sister set of friends who were their near clones but not as bright. Both sets also had dogs and silly adventures such as where they went looking for each other at their respective homes only to miss each other as they walked on the opposite sides of the same hill. I also seem to remember a lot more simple style in the art, almost cartoonish with lines and I don't remember even a small bit of indication that there was coloring or shading. I guess that Dot and Jim fell firmly in the knock-off realm.

See DOS Run shirt link
The See DOS Run link (the 1st link) goes to an advertiser, not to a shirt.—Mike 14:20, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Who were Dot and Jim?
Dot and Jim were characters in Economy Company's Phonetic Keys to Reading series that began in the 1952. This supplemental taught children to read with phonics. They also had a dog named Tag. In addition to phonics work-pages, there were stories that resembled the Dick and Jane stories. The words, however, were introduced by sounding them out. The books included: Tag, Dot and Jim, and All Around with Dot and Jim at the first grade level. 12.207.183.128 (talk) 03:29, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Elizabeth Rider Montgomery
She was apparently also an important contributor, though I can't find enough on the Internet to discern exactly her place. Akriasas (talk) 23:23, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Zerna A. Sharp
Don't forget her, either. &mdash;Rickyrab | Talk 23:38, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Re-issue
In this wiki article it reads: "The books were reissued in 2003 by Grosset & Dunlap, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) and over 2.5 million copies were sold, but this time the publishers had warned against using them to teach reading to children." Please include references as to the warning about not using them to teach reading. Millions of children did learn to read with these books, so to include a warning about not using them without relevant facts and reasons is suspect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.155.141.242 (talk) 02:11, 1 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Millions of children learned to read poorly with these books, finishing high school as functional illiterates and total vocabularies of about 2,500 words — about 10% of what they should have had. &mdash; QuicksilverT @ 06:51, 27 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh bee ess, I read better than you do, and I grew up on Dick and Jane. You are full of something ... 50.243.108.109 (talk) 06:58, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Time period in which it was in use
I went to grade school in the late 80's, and we were still using Sally Dick and Jane to learn how to read. Maybe the last book was published in the 70's, but most schools (at least back then) held on to their books for 20 years or more. 74.182.101.168 (talk) 15:46, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I was born in 80 and they were using at least one of those books in first grade in 1986. That first sentence is just wrong.Demigord (talk) 00:00, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * And as for scope, I can tell you they were used by the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal in the 1960s and quite likely other parts of Canada, too. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 23:36, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Dick and Jane were used from the 1930s to 1970s throughout parts of Canada as well. For the most part, they were replaced by the "Mr. Mugs" series, which in turn lasted about a decade. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.211.141.159 (talk) 03:55, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Jack and Janet, Tip and Mitten
Jack & Janet and Tip & Mitten series were a popular Dick & Jane competitor published by Houghton Mifflin from the 40s to the 60s. It was called the Reading for Meaning Series. Consisted of the pre-primers (Tip, Tip and Mitten, and The Big Show) and primers Up and Away and Jack & Janet. There may be more, I'm not sure.

Authors Paul McKee, M. Lucile Harrison, Annie McCowen, Elizabeth Lehr, and William K. Durr. Illustrators varied from edition to edition between Corrine Malvern in the 40's & 50's, Violet LaMont and Lillian Obligado in the 60's. — Preceding unsigned comment added by VoodooDali (talk • contribs) 17:58, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * It might be good to include a section on competitors to the Dick and Jane books, if there are sources available to provide the citations.Rosalina523 (talk) 22:42, 15 July 2019 (UTC)