REVIEW: Peter and Jane books

Otherwise known as the “Keywords Reading Scheme with Ladybird”, this set of 36 books is famously known all over the United Kingdom and possibly within the Commonwealth countries.

Did you know that this reading scheme is 44 years old? Now, I’m a strong believer of “old is gold” especially as these books are developed based on research on literacy.

The author, William Murray, an education adviser and together with an educational psychologist, Prof. McNally studied writing materials and spoken samples of English (using a tape recorder).

From their study, they found that:

12 words make up 25% of spoken, printed and written English,
100 words make up 50% of spoken English and
300 words make up 75% of spoken English.

Using the above ‘keywords’, he came up with the Ladybird Keyword Reading Scheme. If you read the books with your child, they will be able to recognize these words on sight (by memory) and have the basic and essential vocabulary to read, speak and write in English.

Basically, you’re building a strong foundation in English with this set of books!

Accompanied by brightly coloured and detailed illustrations of “Peter”, “Jane”, “Pat the dog”, “Mummy” and “Daddy”, the scheme uses the keywords to form simple stories about this British family’s daily life and adventures.

The scheme has 3 series, broken down to levels 1-12:

A – Introduces the keywords
B – Reinforces the keywords with different sentence structures, settings and illustrations
C – Writing and other activities are included

LadyBird also provides FREE worksheets for spelling, fill in the gaps and handwriting practice (one worksheet for one level). Parents or teachers of preschoolers can get these resources here.

Resouces also available for Ladybird’s other reading schemes: phonics, read-it-yourself, read-it-with-me and start reading.

I never read these books as a child because the whole set would cost about RM300 (

However, my mother bought the set for my younger sister and now, I'm reading these books with my toddler.

I started with 1A: Play with Us, which introduces Peter, Jane and Pat the dog. As the pictures of Peter and Jane playing at the beach etc engages him, I don't just read:

This is Peter.

This is Jane.

This is Pat.

AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN because it’d be very boring!

After a sentence, I’ll use the pictures to ask simple questions like:

What’s Peter holding?

Where is Jane?

What is this?

Is Pat the dog here?

Do you want to go to the beach?

This encourages his participation and also lets him show off what he knows. We’ve been reading these books for over a year now and his favourites are below:

While I find this scheme a joy to read (thanks to the illustrations and simple but interesting storylines), I strongly think it’s high time Ladybird UPDATED the illustrations.

They are more than 40 years old, after all – don’t you think Mummy, Jane, Daddy and Peter all need some new hairstyles and fashion?

Tagged as: reading