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Show The Salt Lake Tribune NATION Sunday, March 31, 1996 A23 Run, Spot, Run to See Dick and Jane on National Tour By Jon Anderson CHICAGO — For 40 years, they taught the nation to read. With smiling faces and boundiess ener- gy, they were the poster family of a more innocent age — Dick. Jane. baby Sally, Mom, Dad and Spot and Puff, a dog and cat that never fought At onepoint, before they were overwhelmed in the 1960s by social change and shifting theories of education, Dick and Jane were enthralling 80 percent of the country’s first-graders with adventures in simple cadence (“See Spotrun! Run, Spot, run! Total sales of their reading se- Ties — along with a cornucopia of napkins, valentines, mugs and manuals for teachers — brought almost $1 billion to ScottFores- man Publishing in Glenview, IIl. Now, like elderly movie stars banking on the memories of mil- lions of aging baby boomers, the family members — whonever had last names — are re-emerging as icons of a past era, reminders of the vast transformation that has ters, the setting, the action Hahn said. “Then children could make the jump to written words The minute a child held the first book in his hand, hefelt, “I can bring in the wash from a backyard line. Baby Sally tried to give her Teddy Bear, Tim. a drink from a water fountain — and sprayed everybody To watch a child suddenly re- The problem, for Dick and Jane, wasthat the world changed faster than theycould added, thumbing through someof children’s literature in the first including a wall of framed pictures the two women keep in the home they share in Glenview, Ill grade. Fairy tales. Poetry. Mythology and legends — eve! kids should get to read,” Marianne Curas, editor in chief of Ladybug magazine. a hot seller read alize what reading is — that was the greatest thrill of mylife.” she the Dick and Jane memorabilia, Launched in 1930, Dick and Jane survived for 40 years. Jane went through 200 fashion ensembles. Car styles changed. Little Mew grew up to become Puff. Spot changed completely, from terrier to spaniel. Tailoredfor the times, the story lines, starting with the seminal work, “Fun With Dick and Jane. told of children who made their own playthings, romped with Spot and Puff, explored nearby fields and listened carefully to what Mom and Dad hadto say Plots were simple. Dick played on a swing. Jane helped Mom Today they get really good amongthe 2-to-6 set It’s stuff they can get their teeth into,” Curassaid. To experts in the field, the shifting styles in the teaching of reading and the continuing search foreffective nationalstandardsto measure progress reflect a long war among supporters of three reading methods: “phonics,” “whole words” and “good litera- ture.” Among common classroom questions: Should children be taught to recognize words by sounding out letters (phonics)? Or should they take in whole words. carefully building a vocabulary? Or should they, under the good literature approach, pick their way through tougher works, de. velopinga senseofstory? In a nutshell, “Dick and Jane. which replaced phonics as the methodofchoice in mostschools. was whole-word, with a controlled vocabulary — few words more difficult than “kitten. Now, suggests Curas, support runs more toward goodliterature — notablyworks that first will en- gage thechild'sinterest, particularly ones that try to make sense of an often bewildering world Could Dick help? — and what they stood for. The Dick and Janeseries “was well-intentioned. It worked for a lot of years,” said Karen Smith assistant executive director of the Washington-based National Council of Teachers of English For what we knew about reading, it was the best we had,” she said. “But the world is more than the white suburban world of Dick and Jane. Now, as weteach children to read, we also teach them that the world is bigger than one group's standards. Though ScottForesman broad. enedthe story lines in the 1960s to include ethnic neighbors, the publisher threw in the towel in 1970, retiring Dick andJane rath Could Jane heip? Probablynot. er than stretching toreflect the Whocan relate, for example, to Jane getting called to help Mom nation’s sweeping social changes Educational theorists went on line? “We had to change,” McNutt said “It’s a different world,” added Hahn. Others, however, raise a cheer for Dick and Jane, what theydid ter served by more complex sto- bring in the washing from the to suggest that children werebetries, with children's literature that better reflected the increas- ingly diverse world in which they lived. There's a much bigger thrust onnatural languagetoday, in oth- er words, languagethat is not so controlled said Mary Lou Burns, a first-grade teacher for thepast 23 years at Western Ave nue School in Flossmoor, IIL Still, some teachers who dis- missed “Dick and Jane” as passe are nowfinding they still have a place The pendulum is swinging back little, maybe not to ‘Dick and Jane’ but tobitty six-page stories. There will always be a place for repetition. Some kids need to see a word 40 times before it's theirs. Burns agrees that Sally's escapades would hardly elicit a yawn today, in an era of multichannel TV and VCRs — the global reach of Nickelodeon and Walt Disney videos. It takes a lot more to stimulate kids today, but the most impor- tant thing is themselves,” Hey, that they can read it she said, “It’s like this book is cool because I can readit.’ And that excitement nevergets old.”” After opening in Chicago, the “Dick and Jane” exhibit will tour the country for three years, in- cluding a stop at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass. taken place as American education addresses an increasingly multiethnic, politically conscious culture. Their presence can be felt once again, now that Dick and Jane are on a cross-countrytrip. Call it a national tour. The three-year journey began March16 at the Harold Washington Library Center in downtown Chicago, where “Dick and Jane Illustrations of an American Edu- cation” opened and will remain until June 9. The show includes 70 items. ranging from page proofs with editor's corrections and photo- graphs of models who posed for the characters to a 60-minutefilm by Peoria, Ill, public television producer David Thompson Whatever Happened to Dick and Jane? It's a good question, one that has long intrigued two retired ScottForesman employees, Lou- ise McNutt, 81, an executive edi- tor for Dick and Jane teacher's guidebooks, and Altine Hahn, 82 who set up teacher-training teams in the 1940s that fanned out to run Dick and Jane seminars in schools across the country. It was not rote work,” McNutt said about whythe line was such an immediate success with the sandbox set. “It made them part of what was going on Unlike Dick and Jane's prede- cessors — the long-winded, moralistic MeGuffey Readers, which included text-onlyselections from Dickens, Shakespeare, Longfel- low and Emerson — the newread- ers had pictures, a major breakthrough. The Dick and Janeseries was based oncareful observation of how children of the time talked. Vocabulary was carefully controlled, using 80 words and common emotional reactions to tell a story. “Pictures carried the charac- BEAN CASSEROLE N JUST PLAIN BEANS SPECIAL PURCHASE Hundreds of Rugs in Stock Priced at — CLOSING COSTS M@ HASSLES 1/2 What You'd Pay Elsewhere! ar Aga 6X9 as low as Everfeel paralyzed by your ownconfusion on howbest to save? What's the modern family to do? Well, a homerefinanceloan from Zions Bank isn’t a badplacetostart. There are no closing costs and nohassles. And, with a 7 or10 year loan, we'll purchase a homeowner's SYRACUSE OREM 1693 W. 27005. 774-2800 40 EAST 1300 SO. 727-8800 MURRAY KEARNS vyv. *- = usb LET 50,salue wuraa ean -10, MON-SAT insurance policy and paythe premiumfor youfor one year through Zions Insurance Agency Why,that's boundto save the family morethan a wholeyearofeating beans. 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