The comic book thread has led me to start this thread.
Everyone seems to have started in primary with the Janet and John books. We started with the Dick and Dora books. I was telling someone at work and he said “for god sake don’t google Dick and Dora - god knows what’ll come up”. But it’s true. It was Dick and Dora, and Nip the dog and Fluff the cat. Was it only us who had those books? Surely not?
I can’t remember having any special reading books at school … definitely not Janet and John or the others mentioned 
Mags I started primary school in 1962. Don’t know if that makes any difference 
I remember Peter and Jane Books , were they for myself or my Children i m not sure now ,
Definitely does! 
The only one that I can remember is Aesop’s Fables.
Was Janet and John for me but my husband remembers Dick and Dora books. So may just be different schools using different books. He started school in 1965 in Farnham and I started in 1966 in Woking.
I don’t remember Janet and John books either, not sure what we had…
I faintly remember a book called Henny Penny and the Seven Little Chicks, of course the chicks in those days were the ones that hatched out of eggs. Henny got into all sorts of situations with her chicks, but she always managed to get them all home safely into the henhouse at the end of the day, great the way everything ended up safe and happy, pity we all had to go out into the real world and spoil it all.
Jem, that reminds me of the Ladybird books I used to read to my children when they were small … Henny Penny, Turkey Lurkey, Goosey Loosey … there were quite a few and I think I must have bought the whole set, they were well illustrated in bright colours and my children never tired of listening to the same stories over and over again. 
I never had a first reading book at school because I could already ready read and write when I started school at the age of five. I remember being put at the back of class and told to amuse myself during the reading and writing lessons. I can remember my favourite book was Alice, Thomas and Jane by Enid Bagnold.
My Dick and Dora book was the one you took home to wrap in wallpaper ;-), or brown paper, if you had it. We read it in class, then took it home to do our reading at home. There were many books, containing many stories, of the seemingly interesting life of Dick and Dora :-D. Further on in primary school it was the Reading Laboratory. You worked your way up the colours of the lab, until you got to the top and the end.
Alice76, my first reading book was Dick & Dora too. I remember them going to Seatown on the train (that dates it- must have been the mid 50’s !) and Dick & Dora both had seats by the window. There was somewhat a break in our education when the old school was demolished and a modern one built. During this time, we were housed in the Methodist and Episcopal church halls and facilities were pretty limited.
No reading laboratory for us and I can’t remember what school reading books we used. We could borrow books from the school library for 1 week and so it was things like the Famous 5. Later, there were the ‘classics’ such as The Coral Island, Treasure Island and Black Beauty.
I started school in 1961 and we had Dick and Dora , I remember them well .
I also remember counting in Primary 2 with rods . They were different colours from 1 to 10 , I loved them too !
I really do not remember but we had the village library at my CP. I do remember taking home two simple books already I think I had a basic grasp of the picture/word use in teaching-the evil one and the fool who married it gave me hell for being so childish.
Little did they know that for a few minutes after school my elderly headmistress was helping me with a more adult book-Kipps by H G Wells
My problem too, having teachers as parents I went to school already able to read. Worse thing ever, bored silly with Janet and John, hated school from the day I arrived until I left as soon as I turned 16.
Always loved reading though.
‘Tip’ about a brown and white terrier of that name. It was the first in a series, the sequels being ‘Tip and Mitten’ about the further adventures of Tip but bringing a tuxedo cat called Mitten into it and ‘With Peter And Susan’ who were Tip and Mitten’s young owners.
I think it was the " Janet and John " series of books we read in the early part of the 60’s.
We had Peter and Jane with their dog Pat which was an Irish Setter.
Awful boring little books that repeated key words on every page time after time.
After those came the pirate books Roderick the red , Benjamin the Blue etc which were only slightly better.
I could already read when I joined school and was already reading books like the Secret seven and famous five. After the first year I was just left to read what I wanted from the school library or even bring a book of my own, although the teacher did send a note home asking dad not to send me in with crime thrillers!
At our infant/primary school in the mid 1950s we used the Beacon Readers produced by Ginn & Co.
http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/ODY2WDEwMDA=/z/Hk0AAOSw~OdVbHeO/$_35.JPG?set_id=880000500F
I loved them, but was always getting told off by the teacher for reading several stories ahead of the class.
