Look and Read
Encyclopedia
Look and Read is a BBC
television programme for primary schools, aimed at improving children's literacy skills. The programme presents fictional stories in a serial format, the first of which was broadcast in 1967 and the most recent in 2004, making it the longest running nationally broadcast programme for schools in the UK
. The series remains popular among school children, and has also gained a cult following among those who have grown up with it.
" was broadcast as the first Look and Read story in the spring of 1967. The serial took the format, which the programme would continue for many years, of each episode's story being divided into two instalments with an educational section in the middle to teach children the relevant material. Teachers were also provided with story books, or "pupil pamphlets", for each serial, from which they could provide their pupils the story as well as exercises and games. The plots of the stories were written to appeal to children, initially inspired by adventure serials, and often featured puzzles for the characters to solve using their reading skills, which was also reflected in the material given to pupils. Each serial was also written with a limited vocabulary in mind, each of the keywords
paced through the piece a certain number of times so they held a certain relevance above other words.
During the 1970s the programme began to bring in many new elements for a new generation of viewers. Popular new educational songs were introduced which would remain until into the 90s as well as the character Wordy (see below). In the 80s and early 90s the plots also started to contain contemporary issues such as pollution. Towards the latter part of the 90s the programme began to steer away from some of the elements of the past by, in some, removing songs and combining teaching elements with the story segment of the programme. The producers also began making use of the internet as a teaching aid for the programme, allowing children to access games and material through a dedicated website, although the BBC have since removed the sites due to dwindling use, to the dismay of some teachers.
For the 1974 serial "Cloud Burst", the new producer Sue Weeks created the character Wordy. A large orange character, vaguely resembling a 'golfball' type element from a contemporary typewriter of the age
, with letters on his body, the character featured in the teaching section of the programme, introducing himself as Mr. Watchword, or "Wordy" for short. The character, voiced by actor Charles Collingwood
knew all about grammar and words and taught how to use and recognise them. With a high-pitched voice and distinctive appearance the character has since become one of the most remembered aspects of the programme, and last appeared in the 1992 story "Sky Hunter II".
, ('Pat Farrington'), who also created the characters. Music for the songs were composed by Paddy Kingsland
, Roger Limb
and Peter Howell
of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
and most of the songs were sung by Derek Griffiths
. Among the most popular were:
revival of the programme has made Look and Read the focus of some dedicated websites and some of the older serials have, in recent years, been repeated on BBC children's channel CBBC
.
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
television programme for primary schools, aimed at improving children's literacy skills. The programme presents fictional stories in a serial format, the first of which was broadcast in 1967 and the most recent in 2004, making it the longest running nationally broadcast programme for schools in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. The series remains popular among school children, and has also gained a cult following among those who have grown up with it.
Background
The first programmes for schools in Britain were broadcast in 1957. Early material was mostly aimed at secondary school pupils and seen as a convenient method of demonstration in subjects such as science and geography. In the early 1960s, there was a lot interest in the medium as a way of educating children with certain learning difficulties and in 1962 the BBC produced Television Club which presented stories in a drama serial format. The success of this format made some look into the possibilities of using the technique on programmes for primary school children.The Merry-Go-Round serials
Claire Chovil, a former teacher and children's radio producer, began to research the possibility of bringing stories to television which would meet teachers' requirements to assist them in providing children with word recognition skills. She persuaded the BBC to allow her to produce two experimental serials for their schools programme Merry-Go-Round. Each episode of the serials would contain a limited vocabulary allowing teachers, who were given notes for the series, to present specific lessons with each episode in mind. The story in each episode was divided into two instalments by a teaching segment which gave the children material to read and animated instructions on how to read it. Following the success of the two serials, "Fishing For Fivers" (1965) and "Tom, Pat and Friday" (1966), Look and Read began production in 1966.Programme format
Although originally produced for the series Merry-Go-Round, "Bob and Carol Look for TreasureBob and Carol Look for Treasure
Bob and Carol Look for Treasure was the first story produced by the BBC as part of their Look and Read programme. The ten part serial was filmed, in September 1966, with the intention of being shown as part of the BBC's Merry-Go-Round series but was instead broadcast, between January and March...
" was broadcast as the first Look and Read story in the spring of 1967. The serial took the format, which the programme would continue for many years, of each episode's story being divided into two instalments with an educational section in the middle to teach children the relevant material. Teachers were also provided with story books, or "pupil pamphlets", for each serial, from which they could provide their pupils the story as well as exercises and games. The plots of the stories were written to appeal to children, initially inspired by adventure serials, and often featured puzzles for the characters to solve using their reading skills, which was also reflected in the material given to pupils. Each serial was also written with a limited vocabulary in mind, each of the keywords
Keyword (linguistics)
In corpus linguistics a key word is a word which occurs in a text more often than we would expect to occur by chance alone. Key words are calculated by carrying out a statistical test which compares the word frequencies in a text against their expected frequencies derived in a much larger corpus,...
paced through the piece a certain number of times so they held a certain relevance above other words.
During the 1970s the programme began to bring in many new elements for a new generation of viewers. Popular new educational songs were introduced which would remain until into the 90s as well as the character Wordy (see below). In the 80s and early 90s the plots also started to contain contemporary issues such as pollution. Towards the latter part of the 90s the programme began to steer away from some of the elements of the past by, in some, removing songs and combining teaching elements with the story segment of the programme. The producers also began making use of the internet as a teaching aid for the programme, allowing children to access games and material through a dedicated website, although the BBC have since removed the sites due to dwindling use, to the dismay of some teachers.
Wordy
Daisy wheel printer
Daisy wheel printers use an impact printing technology invented in 1969 by David S. Lee at Diablo Data Systems. It uses interchangeable pre-formed type elements, each with typically 96 glyphs, to generate high-quality output comparable to premium typewriters such as the IBM Selectric, but two to...
, with letters on his body, the character featured in the teaching section of the programme, introducing himself as Mr. Watchword, or "Wordy" for short. The character, voiced by actor Charles Collingwood
Charles Collingwood (actor)
Charles Henry Collingwood is a British actor.Born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, and educated at Sherborne School in Dorset, England, he trained at RADA. He is best known for playing the role of Brian Aldridge in the long-running BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers since March 1975...
knew all about grammar and words and taught how to use and recognise them. With a high-pitched voice and distinctive appearance the character has since become one of the most remembered aspects of the programme, and last appeared in the 1992 story "Sky Hunter II".
Songs
Some of the most memorable moments of the programme were its educational songs. Each story had its own individual theme tune, many of which are well remembered among fans of the programme. Each teaching segment also featured many songs with animations, featuring characters like Dog Detective, which were used regularly over the show's history. Many of the lyrics, such as the 'Clue Song' with Dog Detective, the Karate Chopper and 'Bill the Brickie', were written by Patricia FarringtonPatricia Farrington
Pat Farrington was a producer for the BBC. She worked on Look and Read , Thinkabout Science , You and Me and other series for BBC Schools Television between 1977 and 1996. Along with three or four other directors in Schools TV in the 1980s, she helped to give children a voice in programmes made...
, ('Pat Farrington'), who also created the characters. Music for the songs were composed by Paddy Kingsland
Paddy Kingsland
Paddy Kingsland is a composer of electronic music best known for his incidental music for science fiction series on BBC radio and television whilst working at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Educated at Eggars Grammar School, Alton, in Hampshire, he joined the BBC as a tape editor before moving on to...
, Roger Limb
Roger Limb
Roger Limb is a British composer, specialising in electronic music. He is best known for his work on the television series Doctor Who whilst at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. He joined the BBC as a studio manager, before going on to become a television announcer. In 1972 he left this position to...
and Peter Howell
Peter Howell
Peter Howell is a musician and composer. He is best known for his work on Doctor Who as a member of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop....
of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
BBC Radiophonic Workshop
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, one of the sound effects units of the BBC, was created in 1958 to produce effects and new music for radio, and was closed in March 1998, although much of its traditional work had already been outsourced by 1995. It was based in the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in Delaware...
and most of the songs were sung by Derek Griffiths
Derek Griffiths
Derek Griffiths is a British actor who appeared in numerous British children's television series in the 1960s to 1980s and more recently has played parts in TV drama.- Career :...
. Among the most popular were:
- "Bill the Brickie", which showed a bricklayerBricklayerA bricklayer or mason is a craftsman who lays bricks to construct brickwork. The term also refers to personnel who use blocks to construct blockwork walls and other forms of masonry. In British and Australian English, a bricklayer is colloquially known as a "brickie".The training of a trade in...
"building" words out of bricks, demonstrating the use of units of words or morphemeMorphemeIn linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
s (see a clip on YouTube). - "The Punctuation Song", which featured Mr Big, representing capital letters, and Mrs Full Stop.
- "I'm An Apostrophe", which demonstrated the various uses of the apostropheApostropheThe apostrophe is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets...
. It went "I'm an apostrophe, come and take a look at me, I'm not a comma, I'm not a full stop, don't put me on the line - I go at the top!"
- Probably the most popular, though, was "Magic E", a song originally written in the mid 70s for use in 'Words and Pictures', to demonstrate silent ESilent ESilent e is a writing convention in English spelling. A silent letter e at the end of a word often signals a specific pronunciation of the preceding vowel letter, as in the difference between "rid" and "ride" . This orthographic pattern followed the phonological changes of the Great Vowel Shift...
and the change in pronunciation of preceding vowels — for example, "cap" becomes "cape" with me, "tap" becomes "tape" with me. The song's simple lyrics about changing the words with "magic E" were memorable and simple to learn. Although the song was intended as an innocent song for children it was also open to parody due to the double meaning of the phrase "Magic E" in relation to the drug ecstasyMethylenedioxymethamphetamineMDMA is an entactogenic drug of the phenethylamine and amphetamine class of drugs. In popular culture, MDMA has become widely known as "ecstasy" , usually referring to its street pill form, although this term may also include the presence of possible adulterants...
, especially since the "Aceed" club scene was coming into popularity at the end of the 80s. Many who remember the song refer to it, in humour, in this context. The BBC's own "Cult" web page on the programme does not refer to that song with the phrase "Drop That E!" - this is the title of a different song. However they do include the comment "it's about spelling. Honest."
Cult popularity
A retroRetro
Retro is a culturally outdated or aged style, trend, mode, or fashion, from the overall postmodern past, that has since that time become functionally or superficially the norm once again. The use of "retro" style iconography and imagery interjected into post-modern art, advertising, mass media, etc...
revival of the programme has made Look and Read the focus of some dedicated websites and some of the older serials have, in recent years, been repeated on BBC children's channel CBBC
CBBC
CBBC is one of two brand names used for the BBC's children's television strands. Between 1985 and 2002, CBBC was the name given to all the BBC's programmes on TV for children aged under 14...
.
List of Look and Read stories
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Look and Read specials
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External links
- Look and Read at broadcastforschools.co.uk