Long-Ago School Teachers: Reading Groups

Has there ever been a teacher in the past who didn't name the three reading groups in grade one? Bird names were the norm, like Robins, Bluebirds, and Cardinals.

The teacher hoped that no six year old kid was smart enough to realize that the bird names actually meant something.

For example:

Robins are group one - they can get the word the first day they see it, and they remember it. 


Bluebirds are group two - it takes them maybe a whole week to learn and store the new words somewhere in their brains.


And Cardinals - the teacher can slam her head against the blackboard for four months, but those birds will never get the words.


Never did a kind teacher name a reading group the Sparrows, and that's because people scoff at Sparrows, the common as dirt bird. No offense, Sparrows. Not even group three got insulted by being called a Sparrow.


Unless the teacher was mean.


And then you got called worse.


For example:


Storks
Emus
Buzzards


Nobody could figure out which was the smart group in that bunch of names.

Some teachers tried to please boys with tough names.


For example:


Lizards
Gators
Rats


What boy wouldn't love being a Rat? What boy could possibly care whether or not he could read the word "cat" after nine months of teacher head-slamming against the blackboard? He was a Rat.


It's a darned good thing teachers didn't use bad words for their reading groups.


For example:


Semi-theres
Dufuses
Dingbats


What teacher would have survived a year when an irate parent stormed the school, screaming that the teacher called her little Susie a dingbat?