A child at a blackboard while the teacher and other students look on

A first-grade classroom in North Carolina circa 1950. (From Photograph Collections, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC)

Reading by the numbers

How Americans once learned a fundamental skill.

By
Author
|
The University of Chicago Magazine
—
Fall/23

2

Number of books that history professor Adrian Johns has written about books

300

Natural limit to reading speed, in words per minute

80

Percentage of 1950s US first graders taught to read using the Dick and Jane series produced by education dean William S. Gray, PhD 1916

40

Percentage of their day spent learning to read

1

Maximum number of new words per page in the Dick and Jane books

37

Number of times “look” appears in We Look and See

4

Number of children Johns has

1

Number who taught themselves to read to understand the first Harry Potter book

Education & Social Service
Reading
Books
William Rainey Harper's Index