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Janet and John: Book One (Janet & John Series)

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According to his BBC biography, John 'Boggy' Marsh started work for the BBC in 1965 intending to be a cameraman but had a natural voice for radio. Beginning on the World Service he then announced programmes for Radio 4 for most of the 1970s, including The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In 1982 he moved to Radio 2, Europe's most popular radio station, as a newsreader. It's a lot like going up into the attic and finding something from your past like an old television. It can evoke rose-tinted memories. Something like 70% of the population learnt to read with Janet and John. It's almost part of our cultural heritage, something that is instantly recognisable." 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. 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. Munro, Rona; Murray, Philippa (1973). Kathy and Mark Little Book - Turquoise I. James Nisbet and Co Ltd. ISBN 0-7202-1090-9.

Working with Philippa Murray, Rona Munro created an updated series for Nisbet and Co called Kathy and Mark. In the UK there were three Kathy and Mark Little Book collections, each of four volumes: Green 1-4 (1973), [13] Orange 1-4 (1973), [14] and Turquoise 1-4 (1974). [15] They incorporated small in-line illustrations in place of certain words, such as 'umbrella'. Nisbet published a variety of Kathy and Mark books with other colours and titles. And just as the Dangerous Book for Boys tapped a zeitgeist that is increasingly exasperated by what they see as an overprotective health and safety culture, so these books from decades ago reflect a more buccaneering spirit. 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." It's nostalgia publishing. People remember it from the past with happy memories. They are probably going to be in their 40s, 50s, 60s. To see it again to relive those times. They were probably happier times. Now, I love Ladybird books – and I love a good spoof. So I really wanted to like the four review copies kindly provided by Ladybird HQ. For which I am grateful, I really am. But I just can’t bring myself to like them.

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Obviously, the Progressive readers did not measure up. But what was to replace them? In a 1985 interview 8 Dr Beeby recalled that it was not possible for New Zealand to produce its own new series: firstly, because all the painstaking research into graded vocabularies had been done by the experts overseas; and secondly, because New Zealand did not then have the printing capability to handle large runs of extra-sturdy books in full colour. Even good quality paper was still in short supply. So there was only one solution: to buy an overseas series. Janet and John was the eventual choice of the Syllabus Committee. It would open up that debate rather than just editing it all out. It's important these things are remembered. They should try and make it as real as possible. If you start altering it, it's no longer a facsimile." As for education, primary classrooms were transformed by the approaches derided by critics as 'the play way'. Secondary schooling changed too, though less dramatically. In 1942 over 25 per cent of pupils had not gone on to full-time post-primary education, and another 50 per cent had left in their first or second year. That year the Thomas Committee was set up to look at the curriculum and the examination system. In 1944 the school leaving age was raised to fifteen, and in 1946 School Certificate was introduced as a qualification for those who were not going on to university. And all these reforms were being put in place at a time when school rolls were soaring. Between 1943 and 1950 primary rolls rose by 10,000 children a year; over the next five years the increase doubled to 20,000 a year. The total primary roll had been 280,000 in 1943; by 1955 it was 453,000. 20

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. Originally published in the UK by James Nisbet and Co in 1949 the Janet and John reading scheme was one of the first to use the “look and say” approach. Using limited vocabulary, the books were based around the daily lives of a brother and sister with words frequently repeated, the idea was that children would memorise them and therefore read.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 From the start, the images were designed, as Berger puts it, to 'propagate society's belief in itself', 16 showing it not as it was, but as it should — and largely did — desire to be. Janet and John were no exception. Post-Depression, post-war Western society desired two things above all: peace and prosperity. The image on which both centred was that of the small, privatised, consuming nuclear family.

Rohrer, Finio (19 November 2007). "This is Janet. This is John... all over again". BBC News . Retrieved 22 August 2019. I remember Janet and John with loathing. I can understand the success of Boys Own type escapist adventures, a genre abolished for nearly a generation by politically correct "quality" children's literature, but I can't see any real appeal in the deadly dull Janet and John, Fortunately my children used the much more lively Oxford Reading Tree scheme. Author/Creator: mabel o'donnell, Year: 1949 - 1951". National Library of New Zealand . Retrieved 22 August 2019.

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Ladybird books were originally conceived in 1915 by a Loughborough company called Wills & Hepworth. Their ownership has changed over the years, moving to the Pearson group in 1972 and then absorbed by the publishing behemoth, Penguin in 1999. 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. The original series, written by New Zealander Rona Munro, was discontinued in Britain in 1976 as educationists developed new theories on how children learned to read. 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. 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.

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