Dick and Jane
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Dick and Jane were the main characters in popular basal readers written by William S. Gray and published by Scott Foresman, that were used to teach children to read from the 1930s through to the 1970s in the United States. There is controversy as to plagiarism of another work however, with Gray accused of copying Fred Schonell's similar Dick and Dora readers found in his Happy Venture Playbooks. It is known that the original premise of Gray's readers were in fact appropriated from his Australian contemporary Schonell. Gray's main focus was to develop the Curriculum Foundation Series of books for Scott, Foresman and Company. His vision was to tie "subject area" books in health, science, social studies, etc with the vocabulary mastered in the basic readers, thus vastly improving readability in these same areas. The main characters, Dick and Jane, were a little boy and girl. Supporting characters included Baby (or Sally), Mother, Father, Spot the dog, Puff the cat, and Tim the teddy bear. They first appeared in the Elson-Gray Readers used in the 1930s. The books relied on whole language theories (or "whole word reading") and repetition, using phrases like, "Oh, see. Oh, see Jane. Funny, funny Jane," but they did not totally ignore phonics. Phonetic analysis was part of each reading lesson, although not to the degree one would associate with learning to read by pure phonics. For this reason, they came to be used less and less as studies supported phonics as a more effective method of gaining literacy. [citation needed]
The simple but distinctive illustrations for the books were done by artists Eleanor Campbell and Keith Ward. Robert Childress did the illustrations during the 1950s.
Black characters and characters from other races and cultures were not introduced until 1965, when Dick and Jane books were already declining in popularity. In 1955 Rudolf Flesch criticized the Dick and Jane series in his book, Why Johnny Can't Read, and the push for multiculturalism, and stronger presentation of other races and cultures was partially a reaction to the cultural homogeneity of the series.
First editions of the books are now worth as much as two hundred dollars. 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. Related merchandise, such as shirts and magnets, also gained wide popularity, particularly among people who had never been exposed to the original series but were familiar with catch phrases like "See Spot run!"
The title of one of the books, Fun with Dick and Jane, inspired a 1977 film of the same title, and its 2005 remake.
Grade levels
- Grade 1 - Before We Read, We Look and See, We Work and Play, We Come and Go, Guess Who, Fun with Dick and Jane and Our New Friends
- Grade 2 - Friends and Neighbors and More Friends and Neighbors
- Grade 3 - Streets and Roads and More Streets and Roads
- Grade 4 - Times and Places and More Times and Places
- Grade 5 - Days and Deeds and More Days and Deeds
- Grade 6 - People and Progress and More People and Progress
- Grade 7 - Parades and More Parades
- Grade 8 - Panoramas and More Panoramas
- Transitional 3/4 - Just Imagine
In the sixties, the New Basic Readers underwent heavy revision. The books had a larger page size ,new updated artwork and a very large portion of new stories. Dick, Jane, and Sally also were a bit older and a bit more sophisticated. Teaching procedures also were slightly different- the vocabulary control was looser and more phonics was added. Helen M. Robinson became the head author. The earliest materials were released in 1962. The 1962 Established edition titles were: We Read Pictures, We Read More Pictures, Before We Read, Sally Dick and Jane, Fun With Our Family, Fun Wherever We Are, Guess Who, Fun With Our Friends, More Fun With Our Friends (All Grade 1), Friends Old and New, More Friends Old and New (grade 2), Roads to Follow, More Roads to Follow (grade 3), Ventures (4), Vistas (5), Cavalcades (6), Dimensions (7), Challenges (8). In 1965, an integrated edition was added. This Multi-Ethnic edition changed the title of the 1st and 2nd pre-primers to Now We Read and Fun With the Family to reflect the addition of an African-American family. These three children were Mike, Pam, and Penny. The content of the 1962 edition was somewhat altered to include this new family in the first grade. The other books retained the 1962 titles, yet reflected numerous multi-ethnic groups. The 1965 edition books were available in two covers- one featuring characters as in previous books and the other a child-art edition which did not feature any characters. Many people refer to this second cover as a "fingerpaint" cover, but the Scott, Foresman catalog listed it as "child-art". The Think-and-Do Book workbooks were still very much a part of both editions of the 1960s books. An experimental ITA (phonetic alphabet) version was launched of the multi-ethnic series in the 60's as well.
In 1966 two companion series were launched to provide for individual differences – Wide Horizons for advanced readers and Open Highways for below-average readers.
There were also Catholic and Seventh-day Adventist editions of the 1960s series. Sally, Dick, and Jane was retitled Judy, John, and Jean to reflect the characters who were renamed after Catholic Saints. The Seventh Day Adventist versions used the 1965 multi-ethnic characters, but retitled the books. For example, Now We Read became Friends to Know.
Some episodes in the original would certainly raise many eyebrows now; for example, consider the sequence in which the children are given zip-up laundry bags to play with.
In Popular Culture
- A PBS children's television series called Between the Lions does a parody of the books entitled 'fun with chicken jane'
- In the Simpsons episode They Saved Lisa's Brain, the Comic Book Guy's t-shirt reads "C:/DOS C:/DOS/RUN RUN/DOS/RUN", similar to the catch phrases in the book series.
- Many Target commercials featuring target dog included the phrase 'see spot save', a takeon of the famous 'see spot run.'
- In the Disney Animated Feature Film Tarzan one sequence set to music features a book with a page that says See Jane, See Jane Run. Ironically, one of the characters in the film was named Jane.
- The film Fun with Dick and Jane might be a parody of the book series.
- The Book "The Bluest Eye" uses a Dick-and-Jane Narrative in the beginning.
- In a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon Calvin wrote a book report with the title "The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperitatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender Modes."