Linked with this shift was a new approach to the curriculum. Under Beeby as assistant director-general from 1938, and as

If we look at the publishing industry it has been behind popular culture by a number of years. People have wanted retro." In New Zealand, as Margaret Tennant has shown, the welfare state programme and the focus on families worked for children at the most basic level. By 1954 the average 15-year-old boy was 100 mm taller and 12 kg heavier than in 1934. Though girls made less dramatic gains, they were taller by 40 mm and heavier by 7.5 kg. School medical inspections showed that malnutrition hadShopping had figured in the Progressive readers too — but of a very different kind. In the First progressive primer, published in 1929, Mother told Pat, 'I am too poor to let you buy a roast of beef... but buy a big rabbit. Buy a bone too, so that we can make broth.' 12 Food and shelter are taken for granted in Janet and John: nothing gets cooked or eaten in words, though a doughnut and sandwiches appear in the very first pictures. Mother does not cook or clean, and Father seems to lead a fairly leisurely life too, though they both do a little light gardening. They are shown doing only two things for or with their children — taking them out into the glamorous adult world of shops, boats and planes, and buying them things. The major function of good parents, it seems, is to supply their children with the luxuries of life — made all the more attractive by the bright full-colour pictures that accompany the carefully graded words. The Janet and John books were originally based on the Alice and Jerry series published by Row Peterson and Company in the United States, a series that had been written by Mabel O'Donnell and illustrated by Florence and Margaret Hoopes. In 2001, when the books were "updated" for the modern generation, the perceived social stereotyping was toned down and more [ie any] ethnic minority characters were added.

Long before Book 3 it is clear that Janet and John live in far more affluent circumstances than their predecessors Pat and May had done. Baby has disappeared, and Janet and John are so close in age that they could be twins. Unlike Pat and May, who ran errands and entertained Baby, Janet and John are never shown helping their parents or 'working' in any way, except for one trip to the local shop. What they mainly do is play. director-general from 1940, the Department of Education embarked on an ambitious programme of syllabus reform, culminating in 1948 with the big one — reading. Janet and John arrived as part of this reform. The wave of nostalgia that has gripped the publishing industry follows the success of Conn and Hal Iggulden's Dangerous Book for Boys. Published in 2006, it looked as though it could have been published in 1956. We should forget all this PC nonsense, and send the kids away (on their own) for holidays in the summer in gaily painted caravans, and let them roar down to flooded quarries for a bracing dip before breakfastIn May 1950 I turned five and started school at Mount Eden Primary School. I joined a class of over 40 Primer Ones, the advance guard of the baby boom. On my first day, I traced a camel into a drawing book made of brown paper, and learnt to sing: During the 1970s, new theories were developed on how children learn to read, and "real books" with "real stories" became increasingly popular. [2] Janet and John 's presentation of a middle-class nuclear family fell out of favour, and the series was discontinued in 1976. [2] Kathy and Mark [ edit ] One of the Kathy and Mark Little Books (1973) But Ladybird’s self-satire isn’t the first of its kind. In 2014, London artist Miriam Elia poked fun at the Peter and Jane books. “ We Go to the Gallery” sees Peter and Jane brilliantly recreated, with Mummy taking the two children on a trip to a contemporary art space. Highlights include: He cites the strong sense of professional isolation felt by New Zealand educators then; this had been exacerbated by the Depression, when even books about education became scarce. But he also stresses the 'abiding sense of guilt towards the young, who had suffered in both war and times of want. . . here were experts offering us ways of making reparation to the next generation'. 4

Why is there a penis on the painting?’ says Jane. ‘Because God is dead and everything is sex,’ says mummy. Each story lasted between 2 and 4 minutes – depending on how long Terry Wogan spent laughing mid-story while trying to read them out - and were only ever read out on air when it was John Marsh's turn to be the newsreader. They would be read out regularly on Wake Up to Wogan until 2009 when Terry Wogan retired from the daily breakfast show. When Wogan instead hosted Weekend Wogan on Sundays, the stories remained a highlight of his show. The last episode of Weekend Wogan was broadcast in late 2015. Sadly Sir Terry died in January 2016. Setting the Stories I would wonder why any school would want to buy a revamped Janet and John when there is such a wide variety of books being published in New Zealand." The Government's objective, broadly expressed, is that every person, whatever his level of academic ability, whether he be rich or poor, whether he live in town or country, has a right, as a citizen, to a free education of the kind for which he is best fitted, and to the fullest extent of his powers. 6 By the mid-1970s the Janet and John books were looking increasingly outdated with their representation of a middle-class nuclear family. New theories were also being developed on how children learn to read and books and with ‘real’ stories were becoming more popular the Janet and John series was finally discontinued in 1976.

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This is what the inside of Tim’s head looks like. It also contains pictures of ladies before they have put their clothes on. Munro, Rona; Murray, Philippa (1973). Kathy and Mark Little Book - Orange I. James Nisbet and Co Ltd. ISBN 0-7202-1076-3. This method of learning to read contrasts with the phonics method where children are encouraged to decode groups of letters, which is the method employed in most schools today. Penguin’s publication of a set of satirical spoofs on its classic Ladybird books will no doubt attract a lot of attention from anyone who grew up with them in the 60s, 70s and 80s. With titles such as The Shed; The Wife; The Husband; and The Hipster, Penguin’s tongue-in-cheek “adult” Ladybirds should find a ready market among those who were given the originals as a way of teaching them to read.

a b Westcott, Kathryn (18 June 2012). "Five things about phonics". BBC News . Retrieved 22 August 2019. The books became a familiar aid for teaching schoolchildren throughout the 1950s and 1960s, [12] being used in 81% of British primary schools in 1968. [4] They were one of the first popular "look-and-say" or "whole word" reading schemes, the approach being to repeat words sufficiently frequently that children memorised them – in contrast with the phonics method in which children were encouraged to decode groups of letters. [12] 1970s [ edit ] But the books, which have drawn criticism from British reading experts for ignoring phonics - the relationship between sounds and letters - are unlikely to return to New Zealand schools. I collect Biggles books, which can sometimes make me wince to say the least. And I'm a merchant seaman - a group hardly known for liberated views. Still I put what I read into the period of time it comes from. Whilst there is racism in the books, it's not deliberate - it's just how it was. You can try and censor this or prevent selling or publication, but then you are getting into revisionist history and burning book piles. And that's just plain scary. One should always look at the past and the evidence it presents with the simple viewpoint of what it is - a snapshot in time. You may not like it but it's a fair bet that your favourite grey-haired granny is a hardline racist - and it's purely because of the age she was born into.

I remember a great sense of achievement in moving from the Janet & John red book (number one I think) to the blue book, aged about six or seven at my primary school in north London. I was as fascinated with the typeface as with the illustrations; the beginning of a lifelong love of reading and creative writing. Interestingly though, my schooling was interrupted by a family move to Scotland for 18 months. When I returned to my primary school in the last year before going to secondary school, my reading and writing ability - according to the teachers - far exceeded those of my classmates. And I don't recall reading Janet & John books in Edinburgh. a b c d Carpenter, Humphrey; Prichard, Mari (1984). The Oxford Companion To Children's Literature. Oxford University Press. pp. 278. ISBN 0-19-860228-6. A spokeswoman for Star Kids said the storylines had been modernised. The books were designed for parents teaching their children at home. After six months of the easy life, scholastically speaking, in Primer One, I 'skipped' Primer Two — much to my relief, as it was taught by an elderly woman who was very free with the strap, and was rumoured to be a witch — and went straight to Primer Three. There I met Janet and John and learnt to read.