Comments on: Reading Around the Subject

By: guineapigmum

guineapigmum — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:53:49 +0000

Stone tablets and chisels I fear.

By: MotherSoup

MotherSoup — Thu, 01 May 2008 19:11:07 +0000

Slate and chalk then, gpm?

As for your the quality of your memory - it depends on when you are talking about. Can you date it, even roughly? If you were 15 when you were learning your 40 spellings then yes - your memory is appalling! If you think you were 5, then not too bad… (I know the ‘reading the word “knife”‘ memory comes from a school I left at 5ish.)

But I can remember boasting, before I started school, about being able to read - that was courtesy of the Ladybird ‘Peter and Jane’ series. So - got any pre-school book memories?

I’ve only ever heard you make brief mentions about your exotic upbringing - it would be fascinating to hear more one day…

By: guineapigmum

guineapigmum — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:21:10 +0000

Am I very old (quite probably), very badly educated (possibly) or just suffering from severe memory loss (most likely). I don’t remember any of this. I don’t even remember learning to read; I just remember being able to read and learning 40 spellings for Monday mornings. I did do my early schooling abroad but I’m sure it was a very British education. Janet and John may have featured so perhpas I’m just in my dotage. Flash cards, shiny workbooks and multiple choice? Far too modern for me, I fear.

By: MotherSoup

MotherSoup — Thu, 01 May 2008 06:28:30 +0000

That was a nice clear summary, but overshadowed the wave of nostalgia you’ve set off in me - SRA! Enormous great boxes and *thousands* of coloured-edge cards! Why didn’t I remember those ones? And shiny-papered workbooks for you to note down all your multiple choice answers. Weren’t the colour (sorry, probably ‘color’ as it was *very* American) pretty strange? I remember Tan, Gold, Lime…

Much the same layout with text and exercises, but lots of bafflingly American cultural references and some very dull exercises on parts of speech based on the sentence ‘Pigs Eat Corn’. Funny what you can dredge up.

Some teachers loved them, some teachers really hated them - but the worse crime in the school was to knock the box of cards off onto the floor - picking them up and re-sorting them could take a whole class the rest of the day! Even Don might consider exclusion when faced with that!

Are they still used at all in the UK, I wonder?

By: David Gilmour

David Gilmour — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:33:34 +0000

And given that my Googling brought up two edubuzz sites within the first page, I’m guessing that East Lothian may be in a minority in using it? It wasn’t the sort of conversation where I could find out more. Any pointers?

I’m pleased that edubuzz sites helped with this. It’s a good guess that East Lothian might be in a minority using reciprocal reading, but it could be completely wide of the mark.

That you should trawl up mentions of reciprocal reading on edubuzz sites is probably more due to high levels of web publishing in East Lothian - I make it five mentions - than low usage of reciprocal reading elsewhere.

I completely agree with your point. At a time where we’re trying to make it easier for parents to get involved, education jargon is a barrier. LTS - oops, sorry, Learning and Teaching Scotland - do have some good glossaries on their site, but I couldn’t find a one-stop shop, and I couldn’t find this term.

I really enjoyed this post. I was having weird flashbacks about Dick and Dora and a thing I’d completely forgotten called the SRA Reading Lab. Looks like SRA outlived poor old D&D. Maybe they just didn’t sound scientific enough to survive Wilson’s white heat?

Back to definitions… the best I could do was this - on “reciprocal teaching” - on the LTS site.