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I was in kindergarten and early elementary in the late 50s, early 60s and have memories of the phonics drilling, word of the day and reading exercises and Friday spelling tests. All these were coordinated to compliment each other. All through elementary the teachers separated students into 2 groups with both having the same class work but this enabled the teacher to bias the personal attention more on the kids needing a bit more assistance. We had 4 to a table so it was just a matter of shuffling the seating assignment, no big deal.

One of my grandkids was struggling learning to read in 1st grade so I got involved to assist. So, first thing I did was to get a couple of large sets of flash cards. First set was phonics and second phased in words with the phonics. He had reading homework most days that would be a few sentences, usually a rhyme or something like that. He was a an inaudible mumbler so to break out of that, I turned the reading into a fun game instead of torture. Imagine a Shakespearean actor reading Hickory Dickory Dock or reading it to a rap beat. Hehehe... So, this was the first grader but included in the deal were his preK and third grade sisters, all of us at the kitchen table. The preK was soon able to phonically sound out then read simple words with no pictures and the 3 grader to up her game in reading.

I am so PO’d at how the teaching profession has screwed up several generations of K-12 students and more recently moved on to screwing up higher education.