I.T.A - A Great Idea But A Dismal Failure - The Literacy Blog

i.t.
a: a great idea but a dismal failure – The Literacy Blog 3/25/22, 4:51 PM
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i.t.a: a great idea but a dismal failure

May 14, 2015 · John
Talk to anyone today who was taught to read through i.t.a. (Initial Teaching Alphabet) and
they will almost invariably tell you how they’ve never been able to spell correctly since.
As i.t.a. was more or less abandoned in the sixties/early seventies (though it did cling on for
much longer in some places), many of today’s generation of teachers will never even have
heard of it except from their parents or grandparents! So why write a blog posting about it?
I’m writing about it because it did, at first sight, appear to be a great idea. At the same time,
as the title of the post suggests, it was a disaster – because so many children were left
floundering it its wake.
Starting with the ‘great idea’ bit, it was conceived by James Pitman, grandson of Isaac
Pitman, developer of the famous shorthand system of note-taking still in use today. What
James Pitman thought was not dissimilar from the ideas of Stephen Linstead, Chair of the
English Spelling Society Spelling reform. Pitman thought that if he could produce a single
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i.t.a: a great idea but a dismal failure – The Literacy Blog 3/25/22, 4:51 PM
symbol for every one of the forty-four sounds in English, children would have a simplified and
very easy system to learn. Doing so would give us a writing code not unlike Italian or Spanish.
Most of the single letter spellings, the one-to-ones remained the same. So, the spelling in ‘bat’
remained the same as in our accepted orthography. Where the system differed was in many
of the two-letter consonant and vowel spellings. Thus, Here’s an example: /th/ (unvoiced) in
the word ‘thin’ was spelt q ; /th/ (voiced) in the word ‘this’ was spelt d ; the sound /ae/ as in
‘gate’ was spelt æ; and, the sound /oe/ in ‘goat’ was spelt œ.
If we had a system for spelling the forty-four

sounds in English (forty-five in some accents)
with one symbol, learning to read and spell
would be easy. For example, the sentence ‘I
have a goat’ would be written: ‘I hav a gœt’. At
the time, Ladybird produced books to support
the approach. To give you an idea of what
they looked like, here is an example from a
book called The Fisherman:
The most obvious problem with such a system is that, at some point, the transition to our
accepted orthography must be made . In the sentence ‘I hav a goet.’ above, the spelling of /v/
in ‘have’ is commonly spelt ve at the ends of words and the spelling of the sound /oe/ in ‘goat’ is
oa. For children to make the transition, the teacher has to make explicit to children that, in
English:
· we spell sounds with one, two three or four letters
· sounds can be spelt in multiple ways
· many spellings represent more than one sound
The teacher also has to teach all the various common ways of spelling sounds for reading
and spelling, and they need to know how to teach that many spellings represent different
sounds and the skills to enable them to use this knowledge when reading and writing.
Because hardly any teachers knew how the transition to accepted orthography should be
taught, many children were left struggling to work out the logic of the alphabet code. Teachers
in (the then) junior schools (KS2) found themselves confronted with children writing what
seemed to them like gobbledegook.
The next problem with i.t.a. was that it presented the spellings for the sounds of someone
with a Received Pronunciation (RP) accent, which is not the accent of many speakers of
English. So, it didn’t make sense to speakers of other varieties of English. In addition, aside
from also violating the principle that it is never a good idea to teach what later needs to ‘un-
taught’, no-one for a moment believed that all existing written materials should be re-written in
i.t.a. This meant that after learning to read and write i.t.a., children had to be taught how the
code works.
Today’s would-be spelling reformers peddle what is essentially the same line: simplify spelling
and learning to read and write English will be much easier. As I’ve pointed out here, the idea
is a pipe dream. Many previous attempts have been made and they all founder on the rocks
of different accents of English and on establishing an agreed system of spelling the forty-four
sounds in the language, including the most common vowel sound, the schwa.
There is one reason and only one reason for the spelling reformers’ confusion – instead of
starting with the sounds of the language and teaching children the different ways of spelling
those sounds, they start from spellings. Spellings, they seem to think, ‘make’ or ‘say’ sounds.
They don’t. We are dealing with a symbolic system: spellings are symbols for sounds. Once
this becomes your starting point, you have an anchor for all your subsequent teaching.
Below is the i.t.a. chart, which you’ll also find on Wikipedia here.
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12 thoughts on “i.t.a: a great idea but a dismal failure”
3RsPlus@usinter.net
MAY 16, 2015 AT 1:18 PM
Rite 2 th last par, I'd say. The ankor is th Alpha Code, & th akshon is in th CORRES btw the ltrs &
th snds tht comprise th wds, not in the ltrs or snds per se.
The thing is, English "spellings" are symbols for "readings" not symbols for "sounds." Children
enter school speaking prose, but but few know how to read speech, and that communication is
what reading instruction is all about. The English-speaking world has yet to devise instruction to
reliably teach all kids how to do this. The UK is on the forefront of accomplishing this task, and
more than 600 schools in England are doing it. Curiously, we don't know what distinguishes the
instruction in these schools from that of schools that aren't, but "some day" that information
will come to light.
Anonymous
JULY 22, 2015 AT 1:14 PM
I was taught by ita and got on really well with it. I'm amazed how people find it so hard to read.
I'm now a teaching assistant and find the way phonics is taught now much harder. I don't really
remember a transition between alphabets. I still recall the reading books we had including Janet
and John books. I still have some of them.
My OpenMind
OCTOBER 6, 2016 AT 1:14 PM
I was taught ITA and got on well with it. The problem came when I later came to read normal
English I really lost my confidence. Sounding out words like stomach and hearing the whole class
laugh at my ignorance
To this day I struggle with spelling even quite simple words. I wonder how I might have done if I
had not gone through this ridiculous system.
I still feel self-conscious about my inability to spell.
I wonder if anyone ever sued the educational services for this?
Alastair Archibald
NOVEMBER 18, 2017 AT 7:07 PM
I was irritated that, even though I could read fluently at age 5, and I was allowed to use the adult
library at age 6, I still had to go through ITA.
John
NOVEMBER 23, 2017 AT 9:01 PM
Just fancy, Archibald, you learned to read and write your name – no doubt with expert help
from your mother/father/aunt/etc. and then you have to learn to spell it in some
mysterious code, half of which makes sense and half of which is simply incomprehensible.
And what a name! It sounds as though you came through despite the odds
JEFF
NOVEMBER 26, 2017 AT 12:17 AM
I also was taught to read using i.t.a. and I also question my spelling of any word over 4 letters. I
have to say that teaching a child to read with an alphabet of 45 letters and 2yrs later tell them
that way is wrong we have to do it this way now so unlearn what we just taught you. Silly way of
teaching if you ask me. I just figure we were all part of a bad experament and thenk god they
aren’t using it anymore. I HOPE.
John
APRIL 7, 2018 AT 11:52 AM
Well, Jeff, if only the creator of this programme had learned the one thing I never forgot in
my training: never teach something you’ll have to unteach later! It was a very bad
experiment and you are one of the many casualties.
Ian
JANUARY 4, 2018 AT 2:48 PM
I’ve struggled my entire working life with spelling, as previously mentioned small words remain
difficult to spell. verbal communication, grammar, and punctuation, not a problem, but spelling
has always been my Achilles heel.
I’ve been fortunate to reach senior management positions and if provided with an administrator
or the aid of spell check have managed well, take them away or need to produce information on
a whiteboard !!
DKearley
MAY 13, 2018 AT 10:22 AM
Like wise hate having to spell these days
ITA was a complete joke
DKearley
MAY 13, 2018 AT 10:24 AM
Know feeling
Jean
APRIL 18, 2018 AT 10:37 AM
I started school in 1972 and yes, learned to read with ita. I can remember my parents being
appalled by it. However, I didn’t have a problem with it and soon took to reading conventional
Ladybird and other story books at home. I do still have some of my schoolbooks from back then
and wheel them out every so often to show to people who can’t believe we were taught that
way. A change of headmistress in our third year ended ita and brought in Racing to Read and
Wide Range readers. To be fair, when it came to moving to junior school, half the class were
considered so advanced that we all went straight into the second year, so it couldn’t have been
all that bad. I agree it seems a ridiculous system but it worked for us and today I work as a writer
and editor.
Dan
MAY 10, 2018 AT 3:42 PM
I also was a victim of ITA. I learned to read at home with engaged parents, unlearned it in K & 1
grade, never was taught the “actual rules” to transition, and now I stand in front of college
classes with my Ph.D. and spell like a 2nd grader when writing on the board! I recall building a
wooden craft in first grade, painting it up all neatly, and spelling “garage” across the front. I got
scolded for not using the ITA spelling. Can you imagine? I remember an even from 45 years ago
like is was yesterday. I knew then that the spelling I was learning was crap and got reprimanded
because I actually knew how to spell. That teacher and every administrator in that school should
have had their licenses revoked (<– those words only got spelled right because of my spell
checker!)
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The Literacy Blog

i.t.a: a great idea but a dismal failure

If we had a system for spelling the forty-four

Tweet Share 1.2K SHARE

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12 thoughts on “i.t.a: a great idea but a dismal failure”

I still feel self-conscious about my inability to spell.

I wonder if anyone ever sued the educational services for this?

Like wise hate having to spell these days

ITA was a complete joke

Comments are closed.

Reading… the tsunami

How to teach spelling… the story continues

On the teaching of conceptual understanding: from Vivian Paley

Mini whiteboards, major outcomes!

Email address: Your email address

Olive on How to teach spelling… the story continues

John on Reading… the tsunami

John on How to teach spelling… the story continues

Olive Josuweit on How to teach spelling… the story continues

Judy on Reading… the tsunami

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