authentic, Sharp also observed children playing and listened to their speech patterns. The Dick and Jane reading series taught reading as well as American middle-class values to school-aged children. The storylines that Sharp selected described the lives and experiences of a stereotypical American middle-class, white family in a two-parent suburban home that included three children and two pets. "Father" wore a suit, worked in an office, mowed the lawn, and washed the car. "Mother" stayed at home, did housework, and raised the children. "Dick," the oldest of the family's three children, was active and well-behaved. "Jane," the second oldest child, was pretty and carefree. She also helped care for the youngest sibling, a baby sister named "Sally." The family dog was named "Spot;" their cat was named "Puff." The fictional family's suburban home was surrounded with a white picket fence. Because the readers were made for nationwide distribution, the text and illustrations intentionally lacked references to specific regional geography such as mountains, rivers, lakes, plains, or the seashore. Response to criticisms The Dick and Jane readers, which included titles such as We Look and See, We Come and Go, We Work and Play, and Fun with Dick and Jane, among others, monopolized the market for several decades and reached the height of their popularity in the 1950s, when 80 percent of first-grade students in the United States were learning to read though the Dick and Jane stories. However, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, critics of the Dick and Jane readers began to point out its stereotypes; concerns about class, gender, and racial bias; and errors in content and illustrations. Increasing social changes, including the civil rights movement in the 1960s, also made the characters of "Dick and Jane seem increasingly irrelevant to some." Sharp, who was proud of the series and objected to the harsh criticism, replied, "That's all an adult's viewpoint." Later years Scott Foresman made changes in their readers in the 1960s in an effort to keep the stories relevant, updating the series every five years. The 1965 edition, the last of the Dick and Jane series, introduced the first African American family as characters in a first-grade reader. The family included two parents and their three children: a son, "Mike," and twin daughters, "Pam" and "Penny." Although the Dick and Jane series of primers continued to be sold until 1973, and were used in some