READING ~ Fun With Dick and Jane ~ "Look up. Look up, up, up!"

Did you learn to read with the "Dick and Jane" series?  The frontspiece in this reprinted Reader ["Fun With Dick and Jane"] tells us "Millions of Americans remember Dick and Jane (and Sally and Spot too!).  The little stories with their simple vocabulary words and warmly rendered illustrations were a hallmark of American education in the 1950s and 1960s."

It wasn't just Americans who learned to read with Dick and Jane ~ thousands of Canadians, too, owe their literacy to this sibling pair.  And I am one of them.

So, when I discovered that some of the Readers had been reprinted by Grosset & Dunlap:  New York, and were available through the library, just for fun I ordered one. Besides, I was feeling a teeny, weeny bit nostalgic!  The book eventually arrived from Estevan and I read the six short stories to the children a few times at bedtime.  It wasn't my specific intention to teach Isobel to read ~ I was just enjoying reading stories to my children that were related to my own childhood of long ago.

But then it happened.  We'd gone through the book a few times on previous occasions.  I started reading "Look Up," the first story in the 32-page book.  I paused at the word "look." Suddenly, a tiny voice chimed in "look....look up." And then she did it again.  "Look up, up, up."

The actual page from the book...

I stopped and excitedly said, "ISOBEL YOU ARE READING!!"  And then I gave her a "High Five!"  I am still amazed!

Unfortunately, we need to return the book shortly. However, we do have an old tattered copy of "The New Friends and Neighbours:  The New Basic Reader," published by W. J. Gage And Company Limited of Toronto.  It also features my old friends, Dick and Jane, but at a slightly more advanced level.  Nevertheless, it will give more sight reading practice for Isobel until we can obtain another easy reader.

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"See Isobel read.  See Isobel grow.  Mother is happy and Mother is sad, too.    Mother looks down.  Isobel, you are still my little girl.  Don't grow up too fast, Isobel. Isobel looks up.  Up, up, up.  Isobel says, 'I want to read.  I want to grow bigger.  Reading is fun.'

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