Learning to Read in America - My How Texts Have Changed! - by Laura Huddleston

Harris, B. (1688) The New-England Primer.

Children in the early days of America learned to read with the New England Primer, which was first published by bookseller and journalist Benjamin Harris in the 1680s and stayed in print with revisions into the 1830s accounting for an estimated 8 million printed copies (Hastings, 2017). Letters and syllables were taught with few pictures with the ultimate goal of helping people learn to read the Bible (Pinkerton, 2016). Content-wise these primers contained some unique verses. Due to the Christian teachings of the day along with a high morbidity rate, death and dying were often a theme. Verses such as "Xerxes the great did die, and so must you and I" and "Time cuts down all, both great and small" were commonly used in the pictorial alphabets, as seen in this 1813 edition of the primer. These early texts for children seem odd to us now, but death was a frequent topic in children's literature for around 150 years. (Hastings, 2017). They are a good example of how rhyming text has been used for centuries to help children learn how to read. One wonders if Dr. Seuss reviewed the New England Primer verses before writing his children's books!

McGuffey, W. H. (1853). McGuffey’s Third Eclectic Reader Containing Selections in Prose and Poetry with Rules for Reading and Exercises in Articulation, Defining, Etc. , Cincinnati: Sargent, Wilson, & Hinkle. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/mcguffeysnewlyremcgu.

McGuffey's Reader was published for over 90 years, selling around 120 million copies (Venezky, 1987). As the introduction for teachers in the First Reader states:
"[g]reat pains have been taken to select Lessons in which the language is simple, and the subjects interesting and natural to childhood" (CSU Northridge Oviatt Library). In other words, by the mid-19th century there were fewer verses about death and more "selections in prose and poetry" as noted in the title. Learning to read was now more than an education in Puritanical morality. The teaching method used was phonics-based, and by the 1920s some experts started to believe the text was too difficult for beginning readers and not relevant to their daily lives (Shermer, 2003).

Harris, W., Rickoff, A, & Bailey, M. (1878). Appletons' School Readers: First Reader. D. Appleton and Co., New York. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/appletonsschoolrharr

Written by two school superintendents and an elocution instructor from Yale, Appletons' School Readers are recognized as being the first "modern, corporately sponsored reading program" (Venezky, 1990, p. xx). Teaching by what they describe as a "combination of the word and phonic methods," Appletons' texts walk through different levels of instruction starting with "cat," "rat," "bat," and "hat" in the first reader (Harris, Rickoff, and Bailey, 1878). Keep these words in mind as we look forward to other easy readers...!

Gray, W. (1946). Fun with Dick and Jane. Pennsylvania: Scott, Foresman.

Perhaps no other early reading texts are as famous as the Dick and Jane books. Originally created by Zerna Sharp and written by William Gray, the readers were written in answer to the difficult text and less-than-contemporary prose of previous primers. These books taught millions of Americans to read for over three decades. Dick, Jane, and Sally featured prominently in colorful illustrations along with their parents and pets, but not much happened in these stories, and the books were not without controversy. Shermer (2003) notes that the books, when first presented in Elson-Gray Readers by Scott, Foresman in 1930, included a note instructing teachers to use the “whole word” (or, look-say) method. This method worked on repetition of words rather than phonics practice. By 1955, critics argued that the whole word method did not teach all children how to read successfully and encouraged a move back to phonics (Shermer, 2003). The series was also criticized for not including minorities, although an African American family did join the neighborhood by the mid-60s. Reprints of the books can be purchased today and have enjoyed a renaissance as vintage items. They also continue to be used by families and homeschoolers looking for basic early readers.

Geisel, T. S. (1957). The cat in the hat. New York: Random House.

By the early 1960s, easy-to-read books for children were being published as trade publications by publishers such as Random House who enlisted none other than Dr. Seuss to write a “Beginner Book” with just 220 easily read vocabulary words and rhyming text in 1957. This was the first of Random House’s Beginner Books series which is still widely read today. While not used as primers in the classroom, these books were used to supplement conventional reading instruction texts and to stimulate children’s interest in reading while allowing them to do more independent reading as beginning readers (Russell, 1961, p. 481). Russel’s evaluation of the earliest easy-to-read trade books found that teachers and children enjoyed them and “the children’s favorable comments far out-number(ed) negative criticisms” (p. 480). In other words, children found the books to be fun and enjoyed learning to read these books. Prolific authors/illustrators in the Beginner Books series included Dr. Seuss, Stan and Jan Berenstain, and P.D. Eastman (Go, Dog, Go; Are You My Mother?). The same year that the Beginner Books series started (1957), HarperCollins introduced their I Can Read series with authors such as Syd Hoff (Danny and the Dinosaur) and Else Holmelund Minarik (Little Bear) (Lamb, 2019). Dozens of these titles are still in publication today and continue to be top-sellers.

Willems, M. (2007). Today I will fly!: an Elephant & Piggie book. New York: Hyperion Books for Children.

Diverging quite a bit from easy readers of the 1980s and 90s (such as Biscuit and Henry and Mudge – which didn't vary in style much from their Beginner Book and I Can Read predecessors), today's easy reader giants are clearly Elephant and Piggie created by well-known author/illustrator Mo Willems. The series has won numerous Geisel awards and honors. Willems notes that one of his early inspirations for the books was Eastman’s Go, Dog, Go, but he also states that the books are largely about friendship which is a theme close to the heart of early-reader-age children (Labrecque, 2011). The format of these books varies considerably from easy reader books of the past. Namely, the use of text bubbles gives the content a comic book-like feel. And while Elephant and Piggie books are not technically graphic novels, I believe the success of these books helped pave the way for others to publish true early reader graphic novels such as Toon Books (https://www.toon-books.com/) which have received many starred reviews and industry awards over the past ten years. The ALA (2011) states that graphic novels for this age group have a “word-to-picture correlation [that] provides an easy way to expand children's vocabularies” and “tend to be more engaging than other ‘early reader’ books.”