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The initial teaching alphabet (i.t.a.) is a teaching orthography for English consisting of a variation of the Latin alphabet and a spelling system which was developed during the late 1950s in the United Kingdom by Sir James Pitman (the grandson of Sir Isaac Pitman, inventor of a system of shorthand) . It was intended to be a practical simplified writing system which could be used to teach English-speaking children to read & write more easily than by using traditional orthography (t.o.). After children had learnt to read using i.t.a, they would transition their newly acquired literacy skills to t.o. and learn standard English spelling.

It achieved a degree of popularity through the English speaking world during the 1960s & 1970s, at its peak approx. 10% of children in the United States and the United Kingdom were learning to read & write using the i.t.a. which equated to many millions of children over the two decades. This enabled a considerable level of research & scientific study to be carried out on teaching literacy using very large samples of pupils and the i.t.a. as a benchmark orthography. The popularity of the i.t.a. resulted from its generally superior literacy outcomes in teaching children literacy but at the expense of an increased financial and organisational burden from using two orthographies instead of one.

Etymology

The i.t.a. was an abbreviation of orthography's final name, the initial teaching alphabet. Neither the name or the abbreviation used capitalisation in respect to the fact the orthography deliberately omitted the use of capital letters in order to simplify the initial learning of literacy.

It was also previously known as The Augmented Latin Alphabet and originally as the The Ehrhardt Augmented Roman Alphabet (the Monotype Corporation of Salfords, Surrey had kindly extended their Ehrhardt (typeface) to include the new i.t.a. characters and so were accredited in the original name).

Technically, the i.t.a. should have been known as the initial teaching orthography but since most people would not know what an orthography was, it was simplified to the initial teaching alphabet.

Background to the i.t.a.

The i.t.a. was developed in the United Kingdom in the 1950s, the background to its creation is described.

Literacy

After World War II, the Ministry of Education measured and acknowledged the on-going literacy problem in the UK, this showed one in four children reaching age fifteen with deficient literacy levels. As similar results were seen throughout the English speaking world, suspicion fell on the irregularity of the English language as the cause. Arguments for English spelling reform to improve literacy were made by influential thinkers such as George Bernard Shaw, Dr Montefiore Follick (MP) and Sir James Pitman (MP).

Reading Level: Pupils Aged 15

Category	1948	1952	1956
Superior	9%	9%	9%
Average (+)	34%	39%	43%
Average (-)	27%	22%	23%
Backward	24%	25%	21%
Semi-Literate	5%	4%	4%
Illiterate	1%	1%	0%
TOTAL	100%	100%	100%

Decentralised schooling

In post-war Britain, the choice of method for teaching literacy was delegated by the government to local education authorities who in turn often delegated to head teachers, in addition there was a diverse variety of early education schools ranging from church schools to state schools to independent schools. The government through the Ministry of Education employed a light touch whereby they did not explicitly interfere in the running of schools but attempted to simply influence them, albeit the Ministry did enforce a minimum set of teaching standards through Her Majesty's Schools Inspectorate. The Ministry of Education used circulars to provide advice and guidance to schools which are all recorded at the National Archives.

This decentralised schooling system was both the reason the i.t.a. initially took hold in early 1960s and also the reason it was not universally adopted.

Teaching methods

The type of method for English reading instruction has swung over time between whole language approaches and phonics based methods. The i.t.a. developed during the post war years which was a transition period from whole language to phonics, at the time there were three broad methods in operation: -

METHOD	POPULARITY	DESCRIPTION
Look & Say + Phonics	Most popular	Known as a hybrid 'eclectic' approach, this consisted of initially using Look-and-Say with basal readers for the most common words then teaching switched to using phonics for more advanced words as the limits of the whole-of-language method was reached. This 'eclectic' approach had developed because prior research had shown that look-and-say allowed children to initially learn more quickly before the limitations of using memory forced the use of of phonics to continue reading development.
Phonics	Second most popular	Here phonics was used from the outset, it was recognised that learning was initially slower but pupils were expected to catch-up.
Progressive	Least popular	The progressive method was based on modern thinking whereby the priority was to instigate a desire in reading by introducing children to exciting and imaginative literature rather than using structured basal readers.

The other major factor in teaching literacy was timing. The two schools of thought were to either delay the start of reading instruction until the child had developed further with the aim of then progressing quickly or to start early and initially progress slowly but to give the child a head-start.

Teaching materials

Reading Schemes Common in Great Britain in 1960s
The Happy Venture Readers	Janet & John (most popular)	The Beacon Readers
Vanguard Readers	The Pilot Reading Scheme	Gay Way Readers
The McKee Readers	John & Mary, & Mac & Tosh	The Royal Road Readers

In addition, a minority of teachers rejected these schemes and developed their own scheme based on a variety of books of their own choosing, and their own exercises and word lists.

Government

After the war, school leaving age was increased to 15 in 1947, also the United Kingdom suffered a post-war baby boom. The result of these two factors was a considerable increase in the number of children at school with the school population rising from 5 to 7 million in the post-war years. This put a crisis level strain on the school infrastructure with over-flowing classes, inadequate facilities and severe pressure on education budgets. With the government preoccupied and financially constrained, it did not want to be distracted by the i.t.a. and had no funding to spare so it took a hands-off approach to the i.t.a.

Origins of the i.t.a.

Parliamentary agitation

After World War II, Dr Montefiore Follick (MP) and Sir James Pitman (MP) worked together to promote English orthographic reform in Parliament. Their first private members' bill proposed forming a committee for spelling reform, but it was defeated at the second reading. Their second bill, which proposed a simplified spelling system for early childhood education, passed through the committee stage and won the vote for the second reading. This embarrassing parliamentary victory over the Winston Churchill government allowed Pitman to negotiate with the Education Minister, Miss Florence Horsbrugh MP, to withdraw the bill in return for allowing local education authorities and research institutes to trial a new teaching orthography. Although it needed to be self-funded and self-organised, Pitman had the resources for the orthographic experiment through his ownership of the Pitman Printing Press.

The protagonists

Follick and Pitman were an unlikely political partnership, as they were from opposite ends of the political spectrum. Follick was a firebrand socialist Labour MP, and Pitman was a wealthy Conservative MP. They united in a common cause against the leadership of their respective parties and the establishment, in general, to prioritise children's needs and improve their literacy. They won their political campaign by criticising the status quo but only providing vague ideas on an alternative, preventing counter-criticism on the specifics. They were well aware of the centuries-old failures to enact orthographic reform and were keen to avoid repeating previous mistakes.

The stalemate

The trial required a simplified English orthography, but Follick and Pitman had differing opinions on the best approach. Follick favoured a phonetically pure and completely simplified orthography, with the only consideration being the ease with which children can learn to read, as he ambitiously believed it would provide the evidence needed to initiate spelling reform. On the other hand, Pitman pragmatically felt that spelling reform was unlikely to happen; however, children's literacy outcomes could still be significantly improved through learning to read with a simplified orthography, but this made the transition back to traditional English orthography a critical factor in the new design. Both produced draft orthographies, and in the late 1950s, they debated to a stalemate whether to adopt Pitman's pragmatic or Follick's ambitions approach.

Parliamentary agitation

In the immediate post war years, Dr. Montefiore Follick (MP) with the backing of Sir James Pitman (MP), attempted to advance the cause of English orthographic reform in the UK Parliament. The first private members bill was to form a committee for spelling reform but it was defeated on 2nd reading. This was followed by a more restrained second bill to trial a simplified spelling system just for the early teaching of children, this won the vote for a 2nd reading and passed through the committee stage, which embarrassed the Winston Churchill government. Pitman subsequently negotiated with the Education minister (Miss Florence Horsbrugh MP) and it was agreed that Follick would withdraw the bill, in return the minister publicly stated the government would not stand in the way of a trial by local education authorities & research institutes, indeed the minister wished this endeavour her best wishes. This conceded blessing was the green light for the trial to take place albeit it would need to be self-funded and self-organised, which allowed Pitman rather than the government to shape the course of events because Pitman was both wealthy, influential and had ownership of the Pitman Printing Press so he possessed the resources for an orthographic experiment which the government then lacked.

Protagonists

Follick and Pitman had won their political campaign against the odds by logically & factually criticizing the status quo but only providing general principles on an alternative, this prevented specific counter criticism on the detail and is a well renowned political tactic. The duo formed a formidable political partnership as they were from opposite ends of the political spectrum (Follick was a socialist Labour MP & Pitman a wealthy Conservative MP) yet they were united in a common cause against the leadership in both parties and the establishment in general. They believed that their goals, to help children and place their needs as a priority, was morally and ethically righteous. Their natures also complimented each other in that Follick was a firebrand and leader of the cause whilst Pitman was a negotiator and pragmatist, it is clear they forged a strong friendship through their campaigns.

Design decision for the interim orthography

The trial needed a simplified English orthography but there were two options. The first was a phonetically pure and completely simplified orthography with no consideration for the transition of the children back to t.o. This option was favoured by Follick who was committed to the ultimate prize of orthographic reform, his position was to maximise the improvement in children's literacy which would provide the overwhelming evidence needed to initiate spelling reform. Pitman reasoned that the centuries old goal of spelling reform would likely remain out of reach no matter what the findings of the trial, but children's literacy outcomes could still be significantly improved by learning to read with a simplified orthography, this would only work if the child could effortlessly transition back to t.o. A substantial level of simplification was still possible within this design constraint. Both Pitman and Follick produced draft orthographies and a hiatus set in during the later half of the '50s whilst this debate occurred.

Launch of the i.t.a.

Mobilisation

The impasse was broken with the death of Monte on the 10th Dec 1958, Pitman effectively became the leading proponent of spelling reform and published his orthography "The Ehrhardt Augmented Roman Alphabet" on 29th May 1959 in the Times Educational Supplement. Pitman orchestrated a public show of support for the trial from the new education minister, the teaching unions, the education committees, key universities and educational research institutes. A governance committee was formed to steer the experiment and the nation's principal educational research institute, the London xxxxx spun up the Reading Research Unit to carry out the trial under the leadership of Dr John Downing. Articles in the educational press and lectures raised awareness leading to the nationwide distribution of a pamphlet to all local education authorities, educators, head teachers, publishers and early learning teachers explaining the trial and seeking support for the endevour.

Governance committee members with I.J. Pitman
H.L. Elvin	W.R. Niblett	W.D. Wall
P.E. Vernon	Joyce M. Morris	Cyril Burt

Trial of the i.t.a.

By September 1960, Downing had meticulously organised the trial on a scientific basis using the standard Janet & John Basel readers which were transliterated into the i.t.a. The trial was controlled by identifying factors such as socio-economic status and pairing alike schools together so one school participated in the experiment whilst the twin taught in the same way but using t.o., hence allowing for fair comparison. Unfortunately, most schools considered the use of an interim orthography to be a bizarre idea and so happily volunteered to be controls but very few volunteered to join the i.t.a. experiment. This resulted in the schools trialling the i.t.a. to be at a disadvantage to the control schools: -

• The i.t.a. class sizes were larger
• The i.t.a. children were younger
• The i.t.a. schools had worst buildings & classroom facilities
• There was a shortage of i.t.a. books in the book corner
• The i.t.a. teachers had no experience and little training of using the i.t.a.

The details of the trial were: -

Academic Years
1961	1962	1963

	Classes	Pupils
Experimental Groups	41	873
Control Groups	41	873
TOTAL	82	1746

Findings of the i.t.a. trial

The measured results of the three year trial showed a clear superiority of using i.t.a. over t.o.: -

1. Pupils using i.t.a. made more rapid progress through the basal reader series
2. Pupils who learnt through i.t.a. achieved higher scores on reading tests
3. Pupils who learnt through i.t.a. wrote longer compositions
4. Pupils who learnt through i.t.a. attained a more extensive vocabulary

Progress through the identical Basel reader series in i.t.a. aendeavour(t.o.)

Progress through the Janet & John Reading Primers

Primer No.	% of i.t.a. pupils	% of traditional orthography pupils
< Book 2	10.4	25.9
= Book 3	5.0	19.1
= Book 4	4.3	11.2
= Book 5	2.5	6.1
> Book 5	78.1	37.8

After the pupils transitioned to t.o., reading tests showed the advantages persisted: -

Outcome of the i.t.a. trial

As the i.t.a. trial was publicized, it caused a commotion in the press and media with large numbers of visitors including journalists descending on the schools trialing the i.t.a. By 1963, the initial trial by John Downing published its findings, socialising the results and recommending the use of the i.t.a. The resulting positive media coverage spread throughout the English speaking world, especially to the USA, where a large number of trials were carried out to validate the findings in Great Britain. With the release of the i.t.a. in 1963, a rapid adoption by schools and publishers then took place, by 1967, the schools council measured the level of adoption and calculated 9.7% of schools in Great Britain had adopted the i.t.a. but this adoption was still expanding at this point and is likely to have peaked around the turn of the decade (c. 1970).

Design ethos

The aim of the i.t.a. was to act as an interim orthography to enable children to learn to read and write easier than by using t.o. Using an interim orthography meant there were two steps in learning: -

• Step (1) - becoming literate in the interim orthography
• Step (2) - transitioning literacy to t.o.

In comparison, normally children became literate in one-step, direct to t.o. There was no point in using an interim orthography unless Step (1) + Step (2) were significantly more successful than one-step learning.

Bearing this in mind, there were two design options for the new interim orthography: -

• Option (1) - design a phonetically pure and completely regular orthography which would be exceptionally quick to learn and give no consideration to transition to t.o.
• Option (2) - give consideration to transition to t.o. by compromising on the phonetic purity and regularity of the interim orthography

An important factor used for the decision on which design option to take was the choice of teaching method. Teaching through the use of phonics naturally led to a preference for option (1) whereas option (2) also allowed the design to be orientated towards whole-of-word (known as 'look & say' at that time).

Sir James Pitman favoured option (2) and positioned the i.t.a. as an agnostic medium for teaching where either a phonics teaching method or the prevalent 'look & say' method could be used.

Mechanism for transition

As the transition from interim orthography to t.o. was a design priority, so a mechanism was needed to allow easy transition. This came from educational psychology where experimentation had discovered an effect called the 'top coast-line' effect which was also used as a basis of whole-of-word methods, which espoused the importance of word-shapes in teaching to read. The experimental observation was that when lines of words were masked at the bottom then they remained easy to decipher by the fluent reader whereas those masked at the top became difficult to read.

The i.t.a. was designed so as to retain the top word shape with traditional English orthography as far as possible. The result of this design decision is that i.t.a. retained a considerable level of irregularity so it was more difficult to learn than needed to be whereas transition to traditional English was found to be effortless.

Details

The i.t.a. originally had 43 symbols, which was expanded to 44, then 45. Each symbol predominantly represented a single English sound (including affricates and diphthongs), but there were complications due to the desire to avoid making the i.t.a. needlessly different from standard English spelling (which would make the transition from the i.t.a. to standard spelling more difficult), and in order to neutrally represent several English pronunciations or dialects. In particular, there was no separate i.t.a. symbol for the English unstressed schwa sound [ə], and schwa was written with the same letters used to write full vowel sounds. There were also several different ways of writing unstressed [ɪ]/[i] and consonants palatalized to [tʃ], [dʒ], [ʃ], [ʒ] by suffixes. Consonants written by double letters or "ck", "tch" etc. sequences in standard spelling were written with multiple symbols in i.t.a.

The i.t.a. symbol set includes joined letters (typographical ligatures) to replace the two-letter digraphs "wh", "sh", and "ch" of conventional writing, and also ligatures for most of the long vowels. There are two distinct ligatures for the voiced and unvoiced "th" sounds in English, and a special merged letter for "ng" resembling ŋ with a loop. There is a variant of the "r" to end syllables, which is silent in non-rhotic accents like Received Pronunciation but not in rhotic accents like General American and Scots English (this was the 44th symbol added to the i.t.a.).

There are two English sounds which each have more than one i.t.a. letter whose main function is to write them. So whether the sound [k] is written with the letters "c" or "k" in i.t.a. depends on the way the sound is written in standard English spelling, as also whether the sound [z] is written with the ordinary "z" letter or with a special backwards "z" letter (which replaces the "s" of standard spelling where it represents a voiced sound, and which visually resembles an angular form of the letter "s"). The backwards "z" occurs prominently in many plural forms of nouns and third-person singular present forms of verbs (including is).

Each of the i.t.a. letters has a name, the pronunciation of which includes the sound that the character stands for. For example, the name of the backwards "z" letter is "zess".

A special typeface was created for the i.t.a., whose characters were all lower case (its letter forms were based on Didone types such as Monotype Modern and Century Schoolbook). Where capital letters are used in standard spelling, the i.t.a. simply used larger versions of the same lower-case characters. The following chart shows the letters of the 44-character version of the i.t.a., with the main pronunciation of each letter indicated by symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet beneath:

Basic ITA chart

Note that "d" is made more distinctively different from "b" than is usual in standard typefaces (which is possible since in the i.t.a. there is no "q").

Later a 45th symbol was added to accommodate accent variation, a form of diaphonemic writing. In the original set, a "hook a" or "two-storey a" (a) was used for the vowel in "cat" (lexical set TRAP), and a "round a" or "one-storey a" (ɑ) for the sound in "father" (lexical set PALM). But lexical set BATH (words such as "rather", "dance", and "half") patterns with PALM in some accents including Received Pronunciation, but with TRAP in others including General American. So a new character, the "half-hook a", was devised, to avoid the necessity of producing separate instructional materials for speakers of different accents.

Research into the i.t.a.

The largescale adoption of i.t.a. enabled a considerable level of controlled research to carried out into this subject. Professor Warburton summarised this for the schools council: -

List of Researches into the i.t.a.

Author	Title	Date	Pupils	Method	Basal Readers	Period	Tests	Location
Bosma, R.L.	Teaching reading with i.t.a.; a research report	1965	22	As per Basal Teachers Guides	Downing Readers (i.t.a.) Various (t.o.)	9 months	Metropolitan Achievement Test	University campus school
Dell, G.A.	The i.t.a. approach to reading	1967	54	Phonic (i.t.a.) Look & Say (t.o)	Downing Readers (i.t.a.) Janet & John Readers (t.o.)	15 months	Schonell's Graded Word Test	Glasgow, Scotland
Downong, J.A.	The i.t.a. symposium	1967	1,746	Look & Say	Janet & John Readers (i.t.a) Janet & John Readers (t.o.)	3 years	Schonell's Graded Word Test Neale's Reading Ability Test Standish N.S. 45 Test	United Kingdom
Downing, J.A. Jones, B.	Problems of evaluating the i.t.a.; 2nd experiment	1966	1,102	Look & Say	Janet & John Readers	3 years	Schonell's Graded Word Test Neale's Reading Ability Test	United Kingdom
Fry, E.	Comparison of 3 methods of Reading Instruction	1966	390	As per Basal Teachers Guides	Sheldon Readers (phonics) Sheldon Readers (diacritical) Early to Read (i.t.a.)	2 years	Stanford Achievement Test Gilmore Oral Reading Test Detroit Word Recognition Test	New Jersey. USA
Hahn, H.T.	Relative effectiveness of 3 methods of teaching reading	1965	890	Language Arts	Bespoke	140 days	Stanford Achievement Test Gilmore Oral Reading Test San Diego Inventory of Attitudes Gates Word Pronunciation Karlsen's Phonetic Words Test Fry Phonetically Regular Words	Michigan, USA
Harrison, M.	Instant Reading	1964	436	Look & Say	Janet & John Readers (i.t.a) Janet & John Readers (t.o.)	3 years	Southgate Group Reading Tests Neale's Reading Ability Test	Oldham, England
Hayes, R.B. Nemeth, J.S.	Factors affecting learning to read	1965	365	Whole-Word Phonics Eclectic (both) Language Arts	Scott Foresman Readers (t.o.) Lippincott Readers (t.o.) Phonics & Word-Power (t.o.) Downing Readers (i.t.a.)	140 days	Stanford Achievement Test Gilmore Oral Reading Test San Diego Inventory of Attitudes Gates Word Pronunciation Phonetic Words Oral Test	Pennsylvania, USA
McCracken, R.A.	Study of Early-to-Read (i.t.a.)	1966	60	As per Basal Teachers Guides	Early-to-Read (i.t.a.) Ginn Basel Series (t.o.)	2 years	Stanford Achievement Test Stanford Reading Inventory Gray's Oral Reading Test	Hempstead, New York
Mazurkiewicz, A.J.	The initial teaching alphabet in reading instruction	1967	915	Language Arts	Early-to-Read (i.t.a.) Downing Readers (i.t.a.) Alice & Jerry (t.o.) American Book Company Language Arts Book (t.o.)	2 years	Botel Reading Inventory Stanford Achievement Test Gilmore Oral Reading Test Gates Word Pronunciation Karlsen's Phonetic Words Test	Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Milne, A.	The Scottish i.t.a. research	1966	720	Look & Say	Janet & John Readers (both) Stott Program Reading Kit	3 years	Burt-Vernon Word Recognition N.F.E.R.N.S. 45 Test	Scotland, U.K.
Robinson, H.M.	Effectiveness of i.t.a. as a medium for reading instruction	1966	450	As per Basal Teachers Guides	Scott Foresman Readers (i.t.a.) Scott Foresman Readers (t.o.)	1 year	Huelsman Word Discrimination Metropolitan Achievement Test Gray's Oral Reading Test	New York, U.S.A.
Shapiro, B.J.	A comparison or reading achievement of i.t.a. versus t.o.	1966	1,018	Various	Various	1 year	ERC Reading Mastery Test Stanford Achievement Test	Clevedon, Ohio
Stewart, M.R.	Two years with i.t.a.	1966	1,350	Various	Various	2 years	Stanford Spelling Test California Reading Test	Hempstead, New York
Swales, T.D.	The attainments of children who learned through the i.t.a.	1966	198	Look & Say	Janet & John Readers (both) Happy Venture (t.o)	2 years	NFER Sentence Reading Test Daniels & Diack Spelling Test	Staffordshire, U.K.
Tanzyer, H.J. Alpert, H. Sandel, L.	Beginning reading; effectiveness of different media	1965	1,946	As per Basal Teachers Guides	Early to Read (i.t.a.) Various Basal Readers (t.o.) Fifty Library Books (both)	2 years	Stanford Achievement Test Detroit Word Recognition Test	Mineola, New York

Major findings

The range of literacy outcomes from using the i.t.a. varied with the majority of studies showing a significant advantage whilst a minority of studies showed a more marginal advantage or equivalence to using t.o. In no circumstances was there found to be any disadvantage to using the i.t.a.

Pupils who struggled with literacy would benefit the least from using i.t.a. Pupils who were most capable stretched their advantage when using the i.t.a.

It was critical that pupils only transitioned to t.o. when they were very fluent in reading in i.t.a. Transition from i.t.a. to t.o. was irrefutably found to be effortless

Teachers preference on whether to use i.t.a. or t.o.

Preference	Head Teachers	Class Teachers
initial teaching alphabet (i.t.a.)	26	78
i.t.a. (with caveats)	2	6
traditional orthography (t.o.)	0	2
uncertain	1	1
TOTAL	29	90

Advantages of the i.t.a.

Professor Warburton identified the following advantages to using i.t.a. from the body of research: -

Children's Educational Outcomes

1. Children learnt to read faster, more accurately and with greater comprehension in i.t.a. then in t.o.
2. Children developed a passion for reading, rapidly exhausting the books in the book corner whereas this rarely occurred with t.o.
3. Children could quickly write freely in i.t.a. using their day-to-day vocabulary whereas t.o. constrained writing to simple words so free writing was not possible
4. Children quickly became voracious creative writers in comparison t.o. children who generally stuck to reading
5. Children developed a wider spoken vocabulary and better pronunciation of spoken English
6. Children became more confident & independent using the i.t.a. as they swiftly dropped the dependency on adults to help them read & write
7. Children progressed faster in other subjects as they were better able to read the text-books necessary to progress
8. Children using the i.t.a. were better in arithmetic, the causal reason for this was not clearly understood at the time
9. Children using the i.t.a. developed a positive attitude to learning whereas children using t.o. showed frustration in learning through bad behaviour in class
10. Unexpectedly, children who learnt using the i.t.a. could spell better in t.o. after transition, it was speculated that the i.t.a. frame of reference allowed them to mentally use spelling rules rather than simply memorising spellings as did most children from t.o.
11. The number of non-readers or semi-illiterate children who had failed to learn to read properly was greatly reduced
12. any linguistic or hearing issues in children could be clearly identified from i.t.a. writing.

Teaching Standards

1. Teachers understanding of the written English language & its relationship to English linguistics (the foundations of reading) were significantly improved, making them better teachers
2. The amount of teacher time necessary to teach reading was reduced allowing more time on other subjects
3. Anyone who reads can try to teach reading, the i.t.a. created a barrier to entry which prevented schools using sub-standard teachers to fill-in when necessary
4. Children were less likely to be held back from having under-capable or under-trained teachers

Disadvantages of the i.t.a.

All the disadvantages to the use of the i.t.a. were related to the organisation and cost of education, these were: -

Books

1. Books in i.t.a. were more expensive then those in t.o.
2. It was necessary to purchase both i.t.a. & t.o. sets of books to cater for the child-by-child transition to t.o.
3. There were less children's reading books in i.t.a. than in t.o.
4. Libraries had less i.t.a. books and these tended to be on waiting lists due to a higher desire to read from i.t.a. taught children
5. As i.t.a. taught children had a greater desire for reading, they were more likely to pester parents for reading books causing them a financial burden
6. Parents struggled to locate i.t.a. children's books as they were not stocked in local bookshops and there was no internet at the time
7. Children at the time often purchased comics from newsagents with their pocket money but dishearteningly, none were in i.t.a.

volume of books in i.t.a. by 1966

Publishing Metric	Number
Publishers	10
Basal Reading Schemes	5
Basal Reading Books	130
Supplementary Book Titles	490
Imports from U.S.A.	unknown
Teacher created content	unknown

N.B. teacher created content mainly consisted of t.o. books with i.t.a. text pasted over the t.o. text using paper glue

Parental Support

1. Some parents felt disenfranchised from the children's education because they could not easily read their i.t.a. books or help with their i.t.a. creative writing.

Changing School

1. A child forced to move from an i.t.a. school to a t.o. school (e.g. parent changes job & moves) faced a significant set-back to their education

Supply of Teachers

1. More time & cost was needed to train i.t.a. teachers, although it was realised that this resulted in a better calibre of teachers
2. Most supply teachers and volunteers could not be used to cover absences as most were unqualified to teach with the i.t.a.

Risks of using i.t.a.

Vera Southgate identified two risks to using the i.t.a. which teachers had to be cognizant of: -

Comprehension

The success of the i.t.a. resulted in a new problem rarely seen when using t.o. Many children were able to quickly gain independence in reading and then rapidly progressed through their reading scheme beyond their vocabulary so they would come across words they correctly read but incorrectly comprehended e.g. "the knight feasting at the banquet" could be misinterpreted as meaning "the knight is fighting at the bank". This was compounded by a lack of i.t.a. books so children exhausted the books with simpler vocabulary and self-progressed too quickly. Teachers were used to pushing children to read and suddenly faced the diametrically opposite necessity to restrain children's reading.

Transition to t.o.

The most important lesson for successfully using the i.t.a. was to only transition a child to t.o. once complete fluency had been achieved at which point the activity was effortless.

Exploiting i.t.a; organisation of schooling

Prof. Warburton found the use of i.t.a. was not being exploited to its full potential due to the following structural reasons: -

Leadership

Her Majesty's Schools Inspectorate reported that only head teachers deemed as 'good' were adopting the i.t.a.

Professor Warburton identified an attitude problem in many head teachers of infant schools, whereby learning to read was not deemed a prime objective of a child's education. These head teachers did not seek to monitor and improve the teaching of literacy, the reading materials were not constantly reviewed & changed instead books were old, tired and tattered, there was no attempt to recruit high calibre and experienced teachers, there was little comprehension of the different methods available let alone which one was the best but the clearest indicator of such poor leadership was the fact these heads inevitably delayed the start of reading instruction, waiting for children to develop. This was a fallacy as schools which started reading early out-paced the schools who delayed, the children never caught-up.

Junior Schools

Although slow learners greatly benefited from using i.t.a., it was important that they only transition to t.o. after they had reached fluency. If they transitioned earlier than the benefit of using i.t.a. to reduce poor illiteracy was reduced. As such a small number of children needed to continue using i.t.a. once they had moved from infant to junior schools, unfortunately many Junior schools did not have the trained teachers or materials to teach in i.t.a. or their head teachers had no inclination to use the i.t.a. There were recorded cases where infant schools stopped using the i.t.a. because their Junior school had a head teacher who did not support the i.t.a.

Junior schools were also unprepared for the influx of i.t.a. taught children who were significantly better at literacy then their normal in-take, instead all children were given the same reading materials so in effect the i.t.a. children were put in a holding pattern rather than capitalising on the increased reading ability. Also it became apparent that teaching English Language at Junior schools was not explicit instead children learnt through using English in other subjects, Warburton suggested that the solid foundation laid by i.t.a. was built upon through further explicit instruction.

Infant Schools

The i.t.a. resulted in brighter children improving at a much faster rate then slower readers, which in turn resulted in a greater spread in class between the best readers and the worst readers for i.t.a. classes. Teachers were forced to phase the transition of children from i.t.a. to t.o. which considerably increased their workload as they had to teach some children in i.t.a. and others in t.o. The result was a significant strain on teachers. Two broad organisational solutions were adopted to this dilemma: -

1. Some larger schools reorganised their classes to stream so fluent children ready to transition were transferred to a higher t.o. class so teachers only taught in i.t.a. or t.o. but never both at the same time
2. Some schools questioned the need for the early transition of bright children even when they were fluent as they still benefited from improvements in other subjects, the main issue was the lack of more advanced i.t.a. books to stretch such children

Exploiting i.t.a; resources and the ways of teaching

Professor Warburton found the use of i.t.a. was not being exploited to its full potential due to missing resources and not using the best ways of teaching with i.t.a: -

Methods

The regularity of the i.t.a. led children to naturally & spontaneously discover the phonetic connection between letters and sounds, known as incidental phonics. Teachers responded by teaching using phonics at an earlier stage than with normal t.o.

Vera Southgate described examples of stunned reception class teachers would had put up name tags and posters in i.t.a. in preparation for reading instruction but the children worked out the basics of reading for themselves due to the regularity of i.t.a. which was unheard of in t.o.

The findings on using the i.t.a. with incidental phonics was a boon for progressive schools using the English Language Arts.

Researchers such as Diack (1967) & Stott (1965) concluded that superiority of the i.t.a. over t.o. was simply due the fact it facilitated the use of the phonics method.

The researchers Cartwright & Jones (1967) took this thinking to its natural conclusion; the best literacy outcomes would be achieved by the explicit teaching of phonics from the earliest possible age using the i.t.a. and a new basal reading scheme designed from the ground-up for that purpose. At the time, there was no i.t.a. phonic reading scheme equivalent to the Lippincott or Royal Road Readers, both pure phonics schemes in t.o. These schemes could not simply be transliterated into i.t.a. due to the different letters & spelling patterns mapping to phonemes. A brand new phonics basal reading scheme had to be designed from the ground upwards. Out of the 276 teachers interviewed, only one applied the i.t.a. using explicit phonics instruction from the outset.

Materials

Basal readers and other supplementary books were transliterated into i.t.a. but it became apparent that this was constraining the i.t.a.'s potential. Children's reading books had developed over time to use simple words in t.o. and gradually add more and more complex words as the child advanced through reading schemes. This was unnecessary in i.t.a. as most words were simple & regular, instead the books needed to reflect the child's spoken vocabulary and build with that vocabulary. i.t.a. had fundamentally shifted the limitation to reading from the written word to the spoken word. Unfortunately the cost of re-writing the literary works aimed at early age children instead of transliterating these works was prohibitive.

Medium

The i.t.a. had retained a considerable level or irregularity in order to ease the transition to t.o. The evidence from its use indicated that transition was effortless but the persistence of irregularity caused the very slowest learners to continue to struggle, although they perfumed better than with t.o. Many teachers wanted a completely regular and phonetically pure orthography. Similarly, many educationalists challenged the design of the i.t.a. and also called for a much simpler phonetic orthography than the i.t.a. Unfortunately, the i.t.a. suffered from the same issue as t.o. in so much as i.t.a. adoption became widespread with a body of literary works and teachers trained to use it, so it became too problematic to change apart from minor embellishments which Pitman made.

Procedures

The research had shown that children taught with i.t.a. at the earliest age performed significantly better than equivalent aged children using t.o. hence there was no excuse to delay the start of reading instruction when using i.t.a. Indeed, this was an imperative to ensure the slowest learners had reached fluency & transitioned before their move to Junior school. The second procedural change to unlock the potential of i.t.a. was to introduce free writing early which was simply not possible in t.o.

Monitoring

Schools needed to be monitored through systematic testing as there was no mechanism for schools to measure their performance against benchmarks or incentive to improve the literacy outcomes of the children in their care.

Slow Learners

A very small number of children who would have failed to read under t.o. were able to read in i.t.a. but not to the extent where they were transitioned to t.o. Vera Southgate described an example where a girl from a lower socio-economic group had two illiterate parents and two illiterate older siblings who had failed to learn to read in t.o. and so had passed on to an educationally sub-normal school (E.S.N.), uncontested. The girl on the other hand was taught in i.t.a. and so was the first member of the family to be able to read books albeit because the rest of the family was illiterate they were unaware the script she was reading was not standard English,. The question was raised as to whether she should go to E.S.N. despite the fact she could read or a normal school despite the fact she could not read in t.o..

Other findings from using i.t.a.

The study of the i.t.a. generated a great deal of research into the teaching of reading & writing to children, this consisted of comparing experimental groups with control groups. Although the i.t.a. was the original subject of study, the research allowed the way literacy was taught in general to be studied in depth and the findings were unexpected: -

Prior Assumptions

It was assumed that variations in the performance of children to read and write would be explained by factors such as the socio-economic status of parents, class sizes, school facilities & the general learning environment instead the research found the attitude of the head teachers, methods deployed, materials available and the teaching procedures used were the principle factors which affected the performance of schools, all of these were in the gift of the education authorities to improve. The ministry of educations previous drives to improve the education of young children had centred on nutrition (providing free school milk and food), environment (playgrounds, sports facilities, libraries and swimming pools), school infrastructure (school buildings, classroom facilities) and an adequate supply of teachers.

Teaching Procedures

The success of experienced teachers versus inexperienced was demonstrably shown by the research. Sacrificing the education of some unlucky children to inexperienced teachers in order for those teachers to gain experience was considered as unacceptable. The problem was tracked back to the teacher training colleges which were found wanting in the level of training given in language, linguistics and reading instruction methods, often only a few weeks of such education was provided when they should have formed a considerable proportion of the curriculum. Both the i.t.a. training and practical experience in teaching with another orthography was thought by many researchers to uplift the knowledge and skills of those teachers.

In addition, some teachers were simply lacking in the capabilities needed to teach literacy which was clearly an under-estimated skill hence the qualification criteria for entry as trainee teachers needed to be raised.

Methods

Researchers had pointed to the fact that the i.t.a. had regularised the orthography of 'look & say' readers so many teachers were now spontaneously able to start to use phonics as their method of choice for teaching literacy. The experiments had also evidenced the fact that 'look & say' provided only a very short-term advantage to phonics but that children using the phonics method soon caught-up and over took. Warburton was of the opinion that measuring early progress was irrelevant and instead the final outcome of early education was important and so signaled that phonics was an improvement over 'look & say'.

Many of the researchers also questioned the compromised design of the i.t.a. which was focused on improving the outcome from using 'look & say', they argued that another design which was phonetically pure would enable the phonics methods to gain considerably more improvements than the i.t.a. achieved with 'look & say'.

On progressive methods, Warburton and the other researchers were scathing, they simply did not work.

Materials

The researchers found surprising large disparities between the different reading schemes

Decline of the i.t.a.

Over the two decades of use, the i.t.a. became inextricably associated with phonics, so when the pendulum of educational theory swung once again back to whole-of-word in the 1980s, i.t.a. fell out of fashion and fell into terminal decline in most English speaking countries. It continues in the United States of America under the i.t.a. foundation for the niche charitable purpose of remediating dyslexia. Ironically the cause of i.t.a,'s decline, the whole-of-word method, has now itself been discredited and educational theory has yet again swung back to using phonics.

Out of the 119 class & head teachers using i.t.a. polled by Professor Warburton in 1969, only 2 voiced a preference to revert to t.o. One was a junior teacher who had only ever taught in i.t.a. The other suffered the strain of handling both i.t.a. and t.o. children because the teacher's school organisation had not been changed to streaming for the i.t.a. The vast majority of the teachers voiced dismay at the thought of going back to using t.o. instead of i.t.a.

Professor Warburton also asked the few schools who had discontinued use of i.t.a. for the reasons why, and the responses were: -

1. The extra cost of books and staffing i.t.a. teachers
2. The school organisation was not conducive to using i.t.a.
3. The appointment of a new head teacher who was opposed to using an interim orthography
4. Not a single school expressed dissatisfaction in the i.t.a.'s performance in teaching literacy

Schools had an incentive to reduce costs & eliminate organisational limitations so the promises of the new whole-of-word methods in the 1980s were appealing.

See also

• International Phonetic Alphabet
• Initial sound table
• Inventive spelling
• Phonics
• Reading
• Shavian alphabet
• Unifon
• Whole language

External links

• "Pitman Initial Teaching Alphabet (i.t.a.)". Omniglot. Retrieved 31 December 2014.
• "Initial Teaching Alphabet Foundation". ITA Foundation. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
• "Discussion group of people taught by i.t.a." Old Ladybird Books. Retrieved 17 July 2021.
• "i.t.a. book covers". Pinterest. Retrieved 17 July 2021.

GOVERMENT REPORTS

• "The Plowden Report (1967) - Children and their Primary Schools". Plowden Report. Retrieved 23 May 2021.

PARLIAMENTRY DEBATES - INITIAL TEACHING ALPHABET

• "Initial Teaching Alphabet - Volume 793: debated on Wednesday 17 December 1969". Hansard. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
• "Initial Teaching Alphabet - Volume 791: debated on Wednesday 19 November 1969". Hansard. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
• "Initial Teaching Alphabet - Volume 791: debated on Monday 17 November 1969". Hansard. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
• "Initial Teaching Alphabet - Volume 750: debated on Thursday 20 July 1967". Hansard. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
• "Initial Teaching Alphabet - Volume 745: debated on Friday 21 April 1967". Hansard. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
• "Initial Teaching Alphabet - Volume 710: debated on Wednesday 7 April 1965". Hansard. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
• "Initial Teaching Alphabet - Volume 708: debated on Thursday 18 March 1965". Hansard. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
• "Initial Teaching Alphabet - Volume 692: debated on Thursday 26 March 1964". Hansard. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
• "Education (Initial Teaching Alphabet) - Volume 691: debated on Thursday 19 March 1964". Hansard. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
• "Initial Teaching Alphabet System - Volume 680: debated on Thursday 11 July 1963". Hansard. Retrieved 25 May 2021.

PRIVATE MEMBERS BILL - SIMPLIFIED SPELLING

• "Simplified Spelling Bill Volume 511: passed for 2nd reading on Friday 27 February 1953". Hansard. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
• "Simplified Spelling Bill - Volume 507: debated on Wednesday 19 November 1952". Hansard. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
• "Simplified English Spelling - Volume 496: debated on Thursday 21 February 1952". Hansard. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
• "Simplified English Spelling - Volume 497: debated on Thursday 6 March 1952". Hansard. Retrieved 25 May 2021.

PRIVATE MEMBERS BILL - SPELLING REFORM

• "Spelling Reform Bill Volume 462: defeated on 2nd reading on Friday 11 March 1949". Hansard. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
• "Spelling Reform Bill - Volume 460: debated on Friday 28 January 1949". Hansard. Retrieved 23 May 2021.

Category:Phonics Category:Phonetic alphabets Category:English spelling reform Category:Learning Category:Reading (process)