Monday Memory

Do you remember SRA cards?!? 

I remember these from elementary school.  I want to say that we started using them in 4th grade. 

Basically, it was a box of card that were color coded based on difficulty level. Each card contained a story on a topic and questions to answer about it. There were also vocabulary words you had to find in the story.

I remember there being some very interesting topics, but I seem to remember a lot of topics that just didn’t peak my interest.

A search of the internet found these pictures of an SRA card:

After reading the story, it was time to answer the questions:

Grading was on the honor system. There were answer key cards in the box as well.

As I recall, in our classes anyway, there was a specific number of cards you had to read and tests to pass before moving on to the next level.

Some people read faster and comprehended better than others. There was probably a chart up on the bulletin board with everyone’s name and gold stars for every test you passed.

I had never heard of Arthur Ashe (the tennis player) before SRA cards. The only reason I remember this is because I kept calling him Arthur Ash-ee and the teacher corrected me.

Thinking about these and writing about them reminds me of other things from elementary school that I should write about later….

* Academic Olympics

* Weekly Readers

* Book Fairs

* Paint shirts

Maybe another day ….