William S. Gray (5 June 1885 – 8 September 1960[1]) was an American educator and literacy advocate, who was commonly referred to as "The father of Reading".
After four years of teaching and being a principal he went to Illinois State Normal University for a two-year teacher training course.
His studies were influenced by the North American Herbartian movement that emphasized starting with what the child knows and proceeding with an inductive instructional approach.
"[3] At the end of his year in Columbia, he earned a Master of Arts degree and a Teachers College diploma, "Instructor in Education in Normal School."
[5][6][7] The characters of "Dick" and "Jane" made their debut in the Elson-Gray readers in 1930, reached the height of their popularity in the 1950s, and continued to appear in subsequent primers until the series was retired in 1965.
[5] Today, the "Dick," "Jane," and "Sally" characters have become icons of mid-century American culture for many from the baby boom generation and the books have become collectors items.
[6][5] Gray's study of worldwide literacy for UNESCO took four years of research and resulted in the book, The teaching of reading and writing: An international survey.
He promoted the whole word method of teaching reading supported by attention to context, configuration, structural and graphophonemic cues.
This meant that the adults tested were able to read with an average proficiency equal to that of pupils in the eighth month of the seventh grade.
The authors stressed that half the adult population is lacking suitable materials written at their level.
The poorest readers—one sixth of the adult population—need “still simpler materials for use in promoting functioning literacy and in establishing fundamental reading habits”.
(p. 95) The criterion used by Gray and Leary included 48 selections of about 100 words each, half of them fiction, taken from the books, magazines, and newspapers most widely read by adults.
Third in importance was format, and almost equal to it, “features of organization,” referring to the chapters, sections, headings, and paragraphs that show the relationship of ideas.
Gray and Leary's work stimulated an enormous effort to find the perfect formula, using different combinations of the style variables.