We started to read from a ‘leesplankje’, a wooden board with pictures and words underneath, ‘aap, roos, zeef, muur, voet, neus…’(monkey, rose, sieve, wall, foot, nose...)
That was a Catholic one; the public schools had their own board, and a slightly different selection of words, ’aap, noot, mies…’(monkey, nut…) yes we were protected from any contamination, our ‘aap’, our monkey had to be catholic.