Initial Teaching Alphabet

1963

Sir James Pitman introduced the Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA). The ITA method was devised to help children learn how to read more quickly. It is made up of 44 letters that each represents a different phoneme. Some of the letter/sound combinations are the same as the conventional English method, but then some characters represented different digraphs, such as “ch” or “oo.” The ITA was intended to provide beginning readers with a logical spelling for the different sounds. Once the students reached the age seven, they were to transition to the standard alphabet. It was believed that once students learned to read using the ITA method they would transition effortlessly to reading the conventional alphabet. While the ITA method was successful in teaching students how to read, they found that many students had difficulty in covering to the standard alphabet.