Yeah. Sad actually. What were those other kids doing in school all that time?
I do think my proficiency came from my ability to read quickly, and so many things were new to me that my interest and comprehension skills were in high gear.
I think my ability to read well and quickly were the keys to my success, such as it was.
Reading was something I did well and quickly (and also spelling), but comprehension did not come with it. I could say the words, but I wasn’t really paying attention to what they meant and what the story was. That took much longer, and I still think I have trouble with it.
Wow - I’d forgotten all about those! I could usually zip through 2 in a single class, sometimes 3. I loved them. We didn’t get to do them all that often, unfortunately!
I forgot to mention the Bible stories. I don’t remember the titles.
They were stories about Daniel in the Lions Den, David and Golith etc. Written in a child friendly way and any violence smoothed over.
I vaguely remember they were were Thin books with colorful colors.
Did your elementary school have the SRA Reading System? It was a special designed reading course with a teacher guidebook.
It was a big part of my 2nd and 3rd grade classes. I was living on a air base and the school was for military dependents.
I remember these! With the colored tabs indicating the level of reading? I didn’t get a chance to actually go through the course. When we started these, my teacher told me to read whatever I wanted to, just do it quietly and not to disturb the class while they were working through the course. I remember reading all the stories, starting from the top level and descending into the easier levels until they got boring. It didn’t take that long.
I don’t remember learning to read. I do remember my first grade teacher giving me books to take home and vaguely thinking it was because I needed to read better than I was. I now know it was because I was already outside the first grade reading curriculum.
I had forgotten all about SRA cards! Wow, what a rush of memories…
There was a thread awhile back about the SRA system that was introduced when the Boomers were in Elementary School. I remember finding out through playground gossip that each class had a different box, with a different series of colors.
What I remember the most about the SRA set-up? It was on the honor system. You graded your own little tests.
I had been reading for a hundred yearscor so. The little stories were short and boring. So…I cheated.
~VOW
“H-O-T-E-L, what do dat spell?”
My Dad damned near wrecked the car as we travelled A1A through Ormond Beach, FL.
Not only my family’s first indication that I could read, but was the first words I spoke in English. Up until then, I only spoke in a language my brother and I could understand.
I was four.
I remember in middle school I was put into a remedial reading class. We had moved to town near the end of the school year and I think they needed somewhere to park me for a couple weeks. I was beyond insulted. The classwork involved reading little comic books based on literary works, then taking a test about what you’d read. I passed the time reading the comic books, but refused to take the tests. I could read better than the teacher, and probably the principal as well!
I don’t remember learning to read, but could certainly do so before kindergarten. My mother tells me I would read anything, even cereal boxes at breakfast and signs when we went out. I did have problems with words I had only ever seen in print, such as thinking for years that “misled” and “infrared” were the past participles of words I hadn’t come across yet (and mentally pronouncing them as such). I still read voraciously, as does my wife.
I sometimes read “bad customer” stories where people have totally ignored multiple large signs such as “Closing Sale - No Refunds” which kind of throw me, as I automatically read anything I can see.
A tip for anyone reading to young kids/grandkids - my daughter loved to have Graham Oakley’s Church Mice books read to her and we loved to read them. They are excellent, with a good kid-friendly story and beautiful illustrations, but also have enough underlying meaning in the text and background activities in the pictures to be fun for adults as well.
Thanks, I’ll take a children’s book recommendation anytime! I always give kids books as gifts (usually plus something else, in case they aren’t readers).
“Infrared” is a weird one that’s easy to mistake for the past participle of the imaginary verb “infrare”. There’s no general rule that can really help; this is just a case where you have to know the word. There are so many strange anomalies in English that it’s a wonder that kids ever master it. And of course there are some that never do!
Hah - I’m glad I’m not the only one who mentally mispronounced this one. I did not know, for the longest time, that it was “infra red”, where “red” was the important part; pretty sure I had NO clue what the word meant, just something that was used in a science-y context.
I saw the word “mishap” in a Bobbsey Twins book. A parent said “All we need now is one more mishap” and one of the kids thought they needed someone named Miss Happ. I was baffled - I’d assumed it would be pronounced like “bishop” (you know, biss HOPP!!).
A teacher once pulled a prank on us. He spelled a word, one syllable at a time, having us repeat the letters, then “how do you pronounce that?”.
“S O” (SO)
“M E T” (MET)
“I” (I)
“M E S”) MES
Naturally we all said “so MET ih meez”. We all got a good laugh.
I vaguely remember 7th or 8th grade, our “reading” textbooks had actual decent stories in them. I raced through this in no time flat. Alan Nourse’s Brightside Crossing (SCIENCE FICTION!!) was one of the tales.
I think that this was what our school used in 1959. I believe they gave me the hardest one at the beginning of the year, I did it, and then they let me read whatever I wanted.
May i recommend Ursula Vernon’s Hamster Princess series? Illustrated by the author, easy for littles to follow, and hilarious for grownups to read and get all the jokes and send-ups of fairy tale tropes.
You know, I love Vernon/Kingfisher. I’ve got no excuse for not having bought those already. Thanks for the reminder!
She is amazing, isn’t she? I auto-preorder all her books for Kindle, and I bought the deluxe reissued complete Digger hardcover.
Yes I remember. It was in first grade. I opened our book and the first word, with a picture of a little dog, was “Tip” And in second grade I figured out my first word for myself. It was hiccup. I recognized cup and sounded out the rest. I was so pleased I got up and went to my teacher to show it to her, and she told me to go sit back down, we weren’t supposed to be in that part of the book yet.
I’m not the only one who had some crappy teachers –