Gary and Sharp wanted children who read the books to be able to readily identify with the characters. They also wanted the characters in the stories to participate in typical activities. Before the appearance of the Dick and Jane stories, reading primers "generally included Bible stories or fairy tales with complicated language and few pictures." Sharp was not the author or illustrator of the texts. As the creator of the Dick and Jane beginning readers, Sharp designed the format and content. She also selected the storylines from ideas that others submitted. Gray co-authored with William H. Elson the Elson Basic Readers (renamed the Elson-Gray Basic Readers in 1936), which Scott Foresman published in Chicago, Illinois. The "Dick" and "Jane" characters, created by Sharp, made their debut in the series in 1930. After the Elson-Gray series ended in 1940, Sharp's characters continued in a subsequent series of primary readers that were better known as the "Dick and Jane" readers. Sharp worked with Gray to create the characters and primary readers that incorporated his input and used the whole-word or look-say method of word recognition (also called sight reading). The look-say method used a controlled vocabulary and taught readers to memorize the words through repetition, placing limited emphasis on teaching phonics. Teacher guides accompanying the texts also encouraged adoption of the whole-word (look-say) method of identifying the meaning of words from the illustrations and repeating words introduced in the text. Content developer Sharp felt that the watercolor illustrations and texts should work together to provide stories that young readers would relate to and help them learn to read more easily. The text introduced a repetitive pattern of words; the illustrations provided visual reinforcements to help students understand the meaning of the words. Sharp suggested that primers introduce to new readers only one new word on each page and only five new words in each individual story. The Dick and Jane primers adhered to this format. Sharp worked with illustrator Eleanor B. Campbell, who did most of the illustrations for the Dick and Jane readers, and others to produce and edit the content. In addition, Sharp named the characters in the stories and supervised the layout and illustrations. Sharp, who never married, referred to the two main characters, "Dick" and "Jane," as her children. These names were chosen because they were easy to sound out. To make sure language in the texts were