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My parents learned to read in the 50s with Dick and Jane, and their dog Spot. But in the 70s, I learned to read with Ted and Jan, and their dog Pug.
Does anyone else remember this series of reading books? I looked them up, and they all seem to be written by a Theodore Lester Harris.
I remember these titles, but not sure of the exact order they came in. We went through a few books in each grade.
Pug
Sun Tree
Zip, Pop, Go
Green Feet
Blue Dilly Dilly
Curbstone Dragons
Mustard Seed Magic
Mysterious Wisteria (this is when the books started looking a little "trippy" with that cool 60s-70s cover art)
Air Pudding and Wind Sauce (Mr. Harris must have done acid, I guess)
Cinnamon Peaks
Silver Twist
This was all from 1st grade to about 6th grade. I clearly remember the first three, Pug, Sun Tree, and Zip Pop Go being from 1st grade.
I found pictures of some of these books online and they brought back all sorts of memories! The characters in the very early books were Ted, Jan, and Pug.
I think in the later years, maybe 4th or 5th grade, one of these books had a cast on ongoing characters called the "Dopple Gang." It was some kids and a man named Mr. Dopple. There was some play on the word "doppleganger," and someone turned out to be a twin or double of someone else. Through the whole book, the one character Sherry was always referred to as "Little Sherry, age 10" and none of us could understand why. Then the punchline to the joke came at the end of the book (at the end of the year) when we learned that Sherry had lied about her age and never actually was 10.
Does anyone else remember these reading books? It couldn't have just been my little NJ school district that had them. If not, what readers did you learn with?
In the 1980s and early 90s I worked at a school that still had old copies on the shelf. I liked some of the stories and did have the kids use them some. Our main series was . . . hmm. Lippincott? Anyway, the titles were
G1: Starting Out, Exploring, Reaching Higher
G2: Jumping Up, Rolling Along
G3: Zooming Ahead, Sailing Along
G4-6: Taking Off, Soaring, Flying High
Some of the stories weren't great, but the early books (through second grade) presented phonics in an organized and sensible manner. I really liked them.
But in the late 60s and early 70s the schools I attended used Janet and Mark, Outdoors and In, . . . Around the Corner, . . . . The earliest pre-primers had little pictures instead of words that hadn't been learned yet.
I have a very vague memory of reading books with a dog in them (maybe Pug?). I remember sitting in a circle during reading group and taking turns reading out loud.
I also remember the SRAs and advancing from one color to the next but I remember nothing about any of the stories.
I do! I was just searching for these online. I wish I could find a picture of them. I remember using them in 1st grade. This was a tiny town of 200 in Arkansas.
Google images is your friend. I did a google image search first and then the books popped up on amazon. Apparently the series is called Keys to Reading.
Thank you so much! I had tried Google, but had not been able to find the one just called "Pug". I found it in one of your links. And your links also reminded me of others I had, like "Blue Dilly Dilly" and "Green Feet".
Yes, I had found the images too, but also couldn't find Pug, the one that meant the most to me. I remember the puppy, Pug, on the cover, and how with that book I went from "sounding-out and kind-of reading" like I did ij kindergarten, to "really reading" fluently with that book in first grade.
Isn't it funny how hippie-trippy the books look to us today? So much stuff for kids in the early 70s was in that hippie-trippy style.
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