SueAnn Porter

Towards the end of the day, we would all go back to homeroom, about 15 minutes before the buses were called. We knew very well that the “other” fifth grade, Mrs. Carr’s class, would be playing board games, chatting, laughing. The boys would be on the floor playing with their Hot Wheels, or wrestling each other.

But for those of us in Mrs. Whitlock’s class, we had to pull out our Reading Books, and spend the 15 minutes reading. Mrs. Whitlock would have a different child read each paragraph. She would look ahead and see what was going on in the paragraph, and ask a question. Whoever knew the answer would then read the paragraph.

For example, if we were reading a story about a boy going to the store, she would ask, “How did Henry get to the store?” We would…