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First published in the 1960’s, I remember learning to read with the One, Two, Three and Away books when I was at primary school. The corner of our school hall was also the school library, and there was an entire shelf of these little white books arranged neatly, in order, on the bookshelves. You would borrow one of the books, take it home and read it with an adult. When you’d finished your book you could take it back and get the next book in the series.
The books were written by Sheila McCullagh, and illustrated by Ferelith Eccles Williams. They were split into different levels of reading abilities, starting with pre-schoolers and early readers, and ending with the colour coded series of Blue, Green, Red and Yellow, though whether this is in level of relative difficulty I do not know. I also have no idea what the top end of the reading age scale was intended to be, but I would guess somewhere in the 8-10 year old range.
The first character you met in these books was Roger Red Hat. So synonymous with the series was this character that the range of books was usually referred to by most children as the Roger Red Hat books, rather than One, Two, Three and Away. Roger was a happy little chappy who always word a red hat, that looked something like a beret, a green waistcoat and a spotty red neckerchief.
He was joined by the equally alliteratively named Billy Blue Hat, twins Johnny and Jennifer Yellow Hat, and Percy Green Hat. I can understand Johnny and Jennifer being given names that didn’t start with a letter Y as there are few names to choose from, but surely Graham Green Hat would have been a better choice than Percy?
The books were set in The Village With Three Corners, with each character living in a house somewhere within the triangular village. It was easy to tell who lived where by the colour of the roof of the house. For example, I seem to recall Johnny and Jennifer lived in a quaint little yellow rooved thatched cottage.
I believe these books stopped being published in the 1980’s, but it appears that many primary schools across the UK still have a large number of them stashed away in their libraries somewhere, as my nephew has recently brought a number of them home to read from his primary school.
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I loved this reading scheme and used it throughout the 1970’s to teach
so many children to read, as a teacher. The Introductory books were so
much loved by all the children, especially The Litltle Old lady!
I have recently looked up this reading scheme and to my surprise you
can buy the Introductory books A-d on Amazon for something like
3£9.00 as they are vintage books! I wish I had kept some of thosee
books, as once a new headteacher arrived at our school, she threw out
this reading scheme as it was old fashioned and introduced the 360 reading
scheme. What a waste of an excellent reading scheme
I remember these really fondly, I started infant school in the early 80’s. My 4 year old starts school in Sept 13, and I would love to be able to relive my childhood and make some memories of his too, but prices on Amazon seem rather high!
These books are fabulous.I learnt to read with these and finished them all including hummingbirds in the first year (lion men of the mountains my favourite)
I have managed to almost get a complete set from ebay and have been collecting them. My son who started school in sept uses the biff,chip,kipper books and is still on stage 2 but he is reading the red one two three and away books.I dont think teaching a child to read phonetically is necessarily better. YOU CANNOT BEAT THESE BOOKS!
AT my school we carried on the reading scheme with some hardback books with a gold and silver band down the side and one of them was about Richard the lion heart,does anyone know what these books were called or who the author was? SWould love to get hold of these
I agree with Ruth Coomber. These books were terrible. They were supposed to be for 5-year-olds but they appeared to be written, and especially illustrated, by a five-year-old. My elder son was bored stiff by them and we had to teach him to read using the old – and superbly illustrated – Ladybird books. My younger son, like Ruth’s family, thought ‘Three Corners’ was a form of torture and it put him off books completely. Fortunately he learned to read from ‘Sesame Street'; so much so that he still says ‘Zee’ instead of ‘Zed’. I am absolutely gobsmacked that anybody remembers these books with affection, apart from Adrian Atkins who says they’re great for Special Needs. Says it all, really.
I taught year one in the eighties and nineties and loved this reading scheme above all others, (have used many.)
It really does do exactly what it says on the tin, 1,2,3 and away… they went, and were reading in no time. OK you could say it is a boring scheme but you are speaking as an adult. Children don’t care how boring it is, just so long as they can enjoy the success of learning to read. !,2,3 was so much better than ORT which went far too fast and left children struggling.
We supplemented the scheme with the Pirate books, the red,green and blue pirates, which were especially appealing to boys, I remember. Also very good.
Please could anyone lend me the introductory books to show my grandson? I would look after them and return them.
I hated these books as a child (aged 5). They were so boring and repetitive. I much preferred reading The Mister Men books, which I was allowed to once I had read one of the Roger Red-hats. I also loved the ladybird books, which indeed had wonderful illustrations. I remember one about a cat who went away somewhere safe to give birth.
I wish they did village with 3 corners as my kids reading book at school .it was fun to read
My daughter is five now and has started bringing home some books for learning to read. She’s actually been bringing some of these books home with her for reading practice, so they are still in use in some schools! Have to say that I do agree with some of the comments about them being repetitive in nature. I think the very early books in the series are a bit on the boring side, certainly not how I remember them. Hopefully I’ll get to see some of the later books as she progresses.
I LOVED these books! My friend was born too late for cut offs and my best friend started school when I was 3 or 4. I was soooo sad. She would bring these books home from school and play school with me. I remember her teaching me to read and just how excited we were! I don’t think it mattered what the stories were about. It just made the “code” so simple to decipher that we could crack it with very short attention spans. My mother said it was the weirdest thing. I couldn’t read and then one day, suddenly I could read even though I couldn’t speak coherently yet.
Anyway, these books got me into reading. I was a terrible student. My attention span was nil and I wouldn’t listen and I wouldn’t do my work. But I still love reading and I think part of it was just how EASY these books were, that they encouraged me.
I loved these books too , I learned to read with them . Also by the same author , Sheila mcculloch , there is a series of books called TIM AND THE HIDDEN PEOPLE . These books ,(32 in the set) , are absolutely amazing . Once you start reading them you can’t put them down . Some great memories of my childhood spring to mind when I think of these books x
I remember reading these too, I would love to get my hands on a set for my daughter to read but I think they are like rocking horse poop.
Please could someone tell me what age these books were aimed at? For example, with biff,chip and kipper books band blue is aimed at age 5-6. What would band blue, green, red and yellow be aimed at?
My son was struggling to read with the read,write,inc scheme they use at his school. At 7 years old he was still spelling out each word he read. I borrowed a set of these one two three and away books from a colleague, I can’t believe how well his reading came on. He really enjoys these books he can’t wait to see what happens at the end and he now sounds like he’s reading a story. I really need the next set of theses books,
I enjoyed this trip down Memory Lane. Just a note that it was Percy Green, not Percy Green Hat. This double exception (no hat, no alliteration) puzzled me even as a child.
Thank you for the correction about Percy Green. Maybe Green was his actual surname and he just happened to wear a green hat, whereas Roger Red-Hat was a nickname just because he always wore a red hat? Maybe also I’m just over analysing it!