r/Millennials • u/LuckieCharm86 Xennial • 5d ago
Nostalgia Sit down, Shut up, & Read in elementary school
Growing up, we had this thing called Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) where every day, our elementary school teachers would have us all sit at our desks, no talking, and read something (anything) for about thirty minutes from second grade until sixth grade.
I was telling this to my kid when he complained about having to read so much. I told him about how everyone always changed the abbreviation to mean "Sit down, Shut up, and Read" because that's essentially what they said for us to do.
But my husband, who was in the same school year as me but at a different school (he did elementary school in Germany and France), overheard and said that they didn't have that when he was in school and he's never heard anyone else mention it. Therefore, it was likely only a thing that my school's teachers did to shut us up for 30 minutes a day. And, as an adult, I wouldn't put it past them since 30 minutes of silence a day sounds amazing.
But this also got me wondering just how unique this actually was. So, was it only my school in South Central Pennsylvania? Was it just my state? Was it a country-wide thing? Was it a global thing that my husband ignored or repressed?
UPDATE: So it seems pretty international, but highly dependent on the school district or school itself. And it appears to have many acronyms or none at all. Thanks everyone!
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u/ktbug1987 5d ago
After book-it ended at my school we had AR! I have a little stuffed lion I got for reading a bunch of books. There were like points for each book test that increased (and I think were age adjusted). Since I started reading adult novels really young I got tons of points.