I didn't go to public school for K-8...I went to Kindergarten when it wasn't part of elementary school, so that was a private K.
I went to a private school 1-12 but only for 1-6 then switched to a catholic school 7 and 8 and then public high school.
I was in elementary in the 70s (I am in my late 40s)
My elementary school all grades 1-6 had reading right after homeroom. Each teacher had 2 (sometimes 3) reading groups in his/her room. At reading time you either stayed in your room or got up to go to another room for your group...it could mean moving up or down as far as grade level teacher but huge portions of kids moved from one room to another. It was no big deal. We used Lippincott reading series (I remember the brown book specifically) and we also used the SRA cards (because the teacher was splitting time between 2 or 3 groups if you were done with your assignment before she got back to your group, you grabbed a card).
Random kids did move for math too but that was just a few per grade rather than a mass mixing up of everyone. But this school was probably already a grade level higher than public schools to begin with.
I remember every single period there was time to work on your classwork and turn it in (small assignment) and time to work on homework (again small assignment)...and I remember learning that if I only had two math problems to finish after math was done, during science I would finish those two and then start on science so as not to have both science and math. And I remember having about 10-15 minutes at the end of the day set aside for homework...I also remember finishing the smallest thing during that time. THEN I had an hour bus ride home so I did homework or read on the bus. The actual distance was 25 minutes away but the bus had so many stops that it stretched the ride out.
