The Letter People
The Letter People is a children's literacy program. The term also refers to the family of various characters depicted in it.
Original program[edit]
Elayne Reiss-Weimann and Rita Friedman created the concept of Letter People as teachers in Nanuet, New York. In 1964, first-grade teacher Reiss-Weimann formed the original idea for the Letter People[1]. She had struggled daily to draw the attention of her 24 students (who were typical first-graders, eager and rambunctious) in a distraction-fond hallway classroom at the overcrowded school. Weimann collaborated with an early childhood coordinator, Rita Friedman, to create an educational program that revolved around 26 anthropomorphic characters, each representing a letter of the alphabet, to teach beginning readers how to "decode" or "sound out" the consonants and vowels that form words. They embodied the basic rules of phonics into stories about this clan of make-believe pictograms called the Letter People.
Each letter of the alphabet had a distinct characteristic to help children learn not only the letter but the sound the letter represents in the written word. For example, Mister M has a munching mouth, Mister N has a noisy nose and Mister T has tall teeth. The characters were painted on large, two-dimensional portrait cards. Each character was given an engaging personality to help the teacher bring her or him alive in the classroom, and each character had a song (or a poem at the time) to help children recall the distinguishing feature and sound. With the help of the Letter People, children remained on-task, learned more quickly, and retained what they learned. From the beginning, the children viewed the Letter People like real people and not just letters of the alphabet, phonics devices, or toys. On one occasion, when the Letter People had to be shipped to another school, the children insisted that holes would be placed in the boxes so that the Letter People could breathe as they traveled.q
Weimann and Friedman later sold the idea to New Dimensions in Education, Inc. (based in Plainview, New York, and later in Norwalk, Connecticut) which, in turn, copyrighted and published The Letter People educational products in 1968. Liz Callen was hired by NDE to design the looks of the characters. NDE developed the concept into classroom programs: Alpha One in 1968, and Alpha Time in 1974.
In Alpha Time, the two-dimensional portrait card characters were made into three-dimensional, inflatable, child-sized vinyl characters commonly known as "The Huggables",[2] which were large enough for small children to hug (though there were smaller-sized Huggables as well). Eventually, Alan J. Pratt, Ph.D., a director and vice-president of NDE, Inc. approached KETC-TV, a PBS affiliate in St. Louis, Missouri, about creating a TV series based on the escapades of the Letter People on December 1977. After five pilot programs were produced, Dr. Pratt approached the Council of Great City Schools (the 20 largest school districts in the US). Eventually since December 1977, with the cooperation of the superintendents of the Council, NDE, and KETC-TV, a joint venture commenced. The series comprised ninety-three 15-minute episodes that became extremely popular nationwide with children who were learning to read. To ensure phonetic and linguistic accuracy in the television production process, Ruth Lerner from NDE served as the Editorial Supervisor. Pratt was the Curriculum Consultant for the TV series. Tom McDonough of KETC-TV was the series' writer-director.
The program's basic concept is simple: Each letter of the English alphabet is represented by a unique character with traits derives from itself. The consonants are males (as the Letter Boys) and the vowels are females (as the Letter Girls, whom there could be no word without). Reiss-Weimann and Friedman also wrote two series of books about the characters, Read-to-Me (1972–1978) and Fables from the Letter People (1988–1989). Callen returned to illustrate all the books of the latter series. Each Letter Person also has an accompanying song (available on cassettes and vinyl record), and inflatable vinyl effigies in two sizes 12 to 14 in (300 to 360 mm) or 30 in (760 mm) a.k.a. "life-size") known as "Huggables". Other merchandise included filmstrips, flash cards, giant picture cards, board games, puzzles, other educational vinyl records, and coloring sheets. Educators who adopted the program are trained in its implementation, and The Letter People is soon picked up by over 30,000 schools across the US.
Television series[edit]
While thousands of children were learning about the Letter People in school, thousands of others were being exposed to them through the television series based on the program. The show was produced by PBS member station KETC in St. Louis, Missouri, and the show first went into production in 1972.[3] The show was extremely popular with children, and it quickly spread to other television stations across the country, via syndication, mainly to PBS and educational stations. The television series premiered on the December 1977.
The Letter People consists of 93 episodes. In each 15-minute installment, the Letter People (relatively primitive puppets) undertake various adventures in Letter People Land, a dark, cute, adorable, gorgeous, featureless and exciting place populated by strange people and creatures. Episodes usually focus on introducing different Letter People or new sounds formed by combining two Letter People together (such as /TH/ or /OU/). Other episodes take the Letter People to more exciting locales such as outer space, cityscapes, meadows, Miss O's opera house, etc.), while a few highlight the characters' conflicts over various sounds (such as Mister C fighting Mister K for his sound). Another common feature of the show is the Catching Game, which is a game show hosted by Monty Swell (who is a character based on Monty Hall) where the Letter People must form words by positioning themselves correctly side-by-side.
- ↑ http://ashyraine.shanock.com/lp/index.php
- ↑ "The Huggables". Life Magazine. May 12, 1972.
- ↑ KETC Timeline
