Mid-fifties. We learned to sing the alpahbet, perhaps in Kindergarten, then write the letters and start with sounds and short words
Dick and Jane readers. Mom, Dad, Dick, Jane, and Sally, with Spot the dog.
See Jane.
See Jane run.
One word at a time, building skills with new vocabulary.
Then, sometime second or third grade, got introduced to something called SMA or SME (or some such acronym), a cardboard box with ever more difficult readings, starting from the front and working to the back.
That was the most fascinating set of books I had ever seen, and wonderfully engaging. I really believe my reading skills were shaped more by that than anything since.
Of course, parents that kept all manner of reading material in front of us didn’t hurt, either. LIFE and LOOK magazines, Reader’s Digest, local newspapers...even the TV Guide.
Yes; there were always lots of books in our house - OLD books, since my father married late, and his mother married very young. They also never ‘talked-down’ to us; they always used very literate adult language, and we just picked it up by some kind of ‘osmosis’. (And reading the newspaper every day was a Big Deal. I started with the ‘funny papers’...)
Some of the books in the house were so old, it took me forever to quit writing words like “color” as “colour”. (I still accidentally revert to it, and the spell-demon chastises me.)
I think part of my facility came from really WANTING to read. Desire is a big part of any accomplishment. And I know that the ‘phonics’ technique was used, though I never heard that word until around the 1980s (my younger husband doesn’t recall hearing about ‘phonics’ when he was trained, either...)
-JT
I remember ‘Dick and Jane’. But what books did the teachers use, to teach the kids? That’s what I’m trying to find; a manual or teacher’s guide, from that era.
-JT
Whole word reading is a path to illiteracy. Phonics must be learned as a fundamental skill.
I was taught phonics, so early that I can’t remember. I have no memory of not being able to read.
In addition to singing & reading Dick & Jane, I seem to remember a lot of flash cards for both letters & numbers