Dick and Jane were readers based on phonics. So wasn’t Suess. (I used to live next to Mulberry Street—where he lived for years.)
My daughter had a learning disability where she could not memorize things well...and what did they do? The taught her phonics. She never looked back and graduated from college with Honors.
She still cant do multiplication tables.
Those books are primers. They use common words and they reinforce sounding out. They are not novels! Ha Ha.
I remember when my kids were in elementary school, I had the hardest time getting them to read.
And then we discovered the “Captain Underpants” books. Hey, whatever it takes.
It was the same with me and “Mad Magazine” back when I was that age.