[FrankR]

I learned to read starting in the first grade, in 1950. Whether we wanted to, or liked reading then wasn't an option. To get passing grades, you had to be able to read; no passing grades was usually met with the strap when you got home.

But along with those "incentives" - and they may still do it, I don't know...my youngest is 40 - we read aloud in class everyday, all the way through school. If you didn't read well you were sort of embarassed in front of your classmates.

Also, there was very little TV, if any, no video games, cell phones, or ipods...we had to entertain ourselves in other ways. In addition to school reading, I remember being enamoured by comic books, mostly Action comics, i.e. Superman, Batman, etc. Silly by today's standards, but I really got a lot of reading practice from those, and learned new words regularly.

Today, I still read very well and I credit those things in the learning process. I also had relatives who encouraged reading and gave me books for presents, etc...a support system, so to speak.

Books and reading are the doors to the world; you can hang in the 'hood from cradle to grave and you don't need to read much and even have above a basic vocabulary, but that has got to be a dull, boring life...the bordom is the devil's workshop.

[GenXteacher]

no passing grades was usually met with the strap when you got home.

But along with those “incentives” - and they may still do it, I don’t know...my youngest is 40 - we read aloud in class everyday, all the way through school. If you didn’t read well you were sort of embarassed in front of your classmates.

Those sort of incentives haven’t been done in years....if it were, my job would be more pleasant. All that self-esteem crap.... That, and embarassed? Many of todays teens would make hardened criminals from the ‘50s blush with some of the things they say (out loud, in class, to the teacher...)