Zerna Addas Sharp (August 12, 1889 – June 17, 1981) 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. Early life and education Zerna Addas Sharp was born on August 12, 1889, to Charles and Lottie (Smith) Sharp in Hillisburg, Clinton County, Indiana, and was the eldest of the family's five children. Zerna's father owned a general store in Hillisburg. After graduating from high school she completed a year of teacher training at Marion Normal College (Indiana Wesleyan University) in Marion, Indiana, but never earned a degree, and later attended Columbia University in New York City. Career Early years Sharp began her career as an educator. She taught first-grade students for nearly a decade at elementary schools in Hillisburg, Kirklin, and La Porte, Indiana. Sharp also served as an elementary school principal. Creator of the Dick and Jane readers Sharp created the characters and concept for the Dick and Jane readers, which were widely used in classrooms in the United States and in other English-speaking countries for nearly four decades before they were replaced with other reading texts. She came up with the idea for the beginning readers for elementary school children while working as a reading consultant and textbook editor for Scott, Foresman and Company, a publisher in Chicago, Illinois. William Scott Gray (1885–1960), director of the Curriculum Foundation Series at Scott Foresman and dean of the University of Chicago's college of education, hired Sharp to develop the characters for the readers and to combine her approach with his ideas for a process of learning to read. Sharp noted the reduced reading ability of children and urged the development of a new reading format for primers; Gray's research focused on methods to improve reading instruction using content that would be of interest to children and develop their word-recognition skills.