Did Ireland have its own version of these books with one of the lead characters named Tara?
I seem remember them from school, mostly because I went to school in Northern Ireland, but somehow we ended up with what I’m pretty sure were books with a Guarda running around shouting “Hey, hey” at the kids :dubious:
Two of my children learned to read partly because of Dick and Jane books. They are great for reading because they repeat so much. Sounding out words can get very discouraging for kids. With the Dick and Jane books my children would only have about five new words in a story, maybe one a page if that. It allowed them to practice their phonics skills without getting tired of reading. They could learn a word so well it was sight read, but still get their phonics practice. They were perfect, allowing my children to increase their reading skills by leaps and bounds in less than a week.
I introduced the Dick and Jane books after they had learned to sound out a word and had the most frequent words learned by sight, eg. the, and, for, etc. I also introduced the Dr. Suess early readers at the same time, but found Dick and Jane to be better for very beginning readers. I taught my kids to read through a combination of phonics and sight reading. I found it worked very well and all my children enjoyed reading at a young age.
To answer the question: I don’t know if schools use the books beyond stocking them in their libraries, but I used the books and was glad they were there.
No, I knew what you were doing.
We used the Buffy and Mack books, Buffy was a panda and Mack was a rabbit. Wow, whatta nostalgia trip!
When I was taking a German class, the teacher gave us readers with Ina und Udo in them.
Why not Dick and Jane and Zombies?
See Jane.
See the Zombie.
See Jane see the Zombie.
Scream, Jane, scream!
Run, Jane, run!
Trip, Jane, trip!
Feed, Zombie, feed! 
What happened is Dr. Seuss supplanted Dick and Jane.
Anyone else read “Jack and Janet”?
And “Tip and Mitten”?
In the UK we had “Janet & John” books publlshed by Ladybird.
Then there was The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender Modes