Edward Lee Thorndike was an American psychologist who spent nearly his entire career at Teachers College, Columbia University. His work on comparative psychology and the learning process led to the theory of connectionism and helped lay the scientific foundation for educational psychology. He also worked on solving industrial problems, such as employee exams and testing.
Dick and Jane are the two main characters created by Zerna Sharp for a series of basal readers written by William S. Gray to teach children to read. The characters first appeared in the Elson-Gray Readers in 1930 and continued in a subsequent series of books through the final version in 1965. These readers were used in classrooms in the United States and in other English-speaking countries for nearly four decades, reaching the height of their popularity in the 1950s, when 80 percent of first-grade students in the United States used them. Although the Dick and Jane series of primers continued to be sold until 1973 and remained in use in some classrooms throughout the 1970s, they were replaced with other reading texts by the 1980s and gradually disappeared from school curricula.
Pearson plc is a British multinational publishing and education company headquartered in London. It was founded as a construction business in the 1840s, but switched to publishing in the 1920s. As of 2017, it is the largest education company in the world and was once the largest book publisher in the world.
Zerna Addas Sharp was an American educator and book editor who is best known as the creator of the Dick and Jane series of beginning readers for elementary school-aged children. Published by Scott, Foresman and Company of Chicago, Illinois, the readers, which described the activities of her fictional siblings, "Dick," "Jane," "Sally," and other characters, were widely used in schools in the United States and many other English-speaking countries for nearly forty years. The series, which included such titles as We Look and See, We Come and Go, We Work and Play, and Fun with Dick and Jane, among others, was marketed until 1973 and used the look-say method of teaching reading.
Basal readers are textbooks used to teach reading and associated skills to schoolchildren. Commonly called "reading books" or "readers" they are usually published as anthologies that combine previously published short stories, excerpts of longer narratives, and original works. A standard basal series comes with individual identical books for students, a Teacher's Edition of the book, and a collection of workbooks, assessments, and activities.
Clarence Lewis Barnhart (1900–1993) was an American lexicographer best known for editing the Thorndike-Barnhart series of graded dictionaries, published by Scott Foresman & Co. which were based on word lists and concepts of definition developed by psychological theorist Edward Thorndike. Barnhart subsequently revised and expanded the series and with the assistance of his sons, maintaining them through the 1980s.
Pearson Education, known since 2011 as simply Pearson, is the educational publishing and services subsidiary of the international corporation Pearson plc. The subsidiary was formed in 1998, when Pearson plc acquired Simon & Schuster's educational business and combined it with Pearson's existing education company Addison-Wesley Longman. Pearson Education was restyled as simply Pearson in 2011. In 2016, the diversified parent corporation Pearson plc rebranded to focus entirely on education publishing and services, and as of 2023 Pearson Education is Pearson plc's main subsidiary.
May Hill Arbuthnot was an American educator, editor, writer, and critic who devoted her career to the awareness and importance of children's literature. Her efforts expanded and enriched the selection of books for children, libraries, and children's librarians alike. She was selected for American Libraries article “100 Most Important Leaders we had for the 20th Century”.
Prentice Hall was a major American educational publisher. It published print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market. It was an independent company throughout the bulk of the twentieth century. In its last few years it was owned by, then absorbed into, Savvas Learning Company. In the Web era, it distributed its technical titles through the Safari Books Online e-reference service for some years.
William S. Gray (1885–1960) was an American educator and literacy advocate.
The Reilly and Britton Company, known after 1918 as Reilly & Lee, was an American publishing company of the early and middle 20th century, best known for children's and popular culture books from authors like L. Frank Baum and Edgar A. Guest. Founded in 1904 by two former employees of George M. Hill's publishing company, Frank Kennicott Reilly and Charles Sumner Britton. Reilly continued to lead the company until his death in 1932. Britton left the firm around 1916 to start a new company in New York, and for a time the company was guided by William F. Lee, who died in 1924. Following Reilly's death, Francis J. O'Donnell ran the company until it was acquired by the Henry Regnery Company in 1959.
William Morrow and Company is an American publishing company founded by William Morrow in 1926. The company was acquired by Scott Foresman in 1967, sold to Hearst Corporation in 1981, and sold to News Corporation in 1999. The company is now an imprint of HarperCollins.
Harcourt Assessment was a company that published and distributed educational and psychological assessment tools and therapy resources and provided educational assessment and data management services for national, state, district and local assessments. On January 30, 2008, Harcourt Assessment was merged into Pearson's Assessment & Information group after being acquired from Reed Elsevier for $950 million.
Joseph M. Williams was a professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago where he promoted clarity in writing for many years. He authored several books on language and writing.
Silver Burdett was an American primary education textbook publishing imprint previously operated by Pearson Education, which is a division of media conglomerate Pearson PLC. The trademark was last owned by Savvas Learning Company.
Alastair MacDonald Taylor was a Canadian historian, filmmaker, United Nations official, professor of geography and political studies, and interdisciplinary thinker. He co-authored the first world-history textbook published in the United States. He played an active role in, and became the leading chronicler of, the diplomatic intervention by the United Nations to secure the independence of Indonesia. He was also among the first to apply systems theory to the historical development of human societies.
Thomas Walter Wallbank was an American historian and one of the original authors of the best-selling textbook Civilization Past & Present.
Eleanor Sophia Smith was an American composer and music educator. She was one of the founders of Chicago's Hull House Music School, and headed its music department from 1893 to 1936.
Eleanor B. Campbell (1894-1986) was an early-twentieth-century illustrator of children's books and portrait artist.
