The lost art of learning to read and write
I TAUGHT children to read and write for more than 30 years and began doing so using the Initial Teaching Alphabet of 42 ‘sounds’, which has come in for criticism (Letters). It was a logical method that overcame the difficulties children have with our illogical language. As the children learned the sounds, they gained in confidence. The traditional alphabet means that many letters have more than one sound and/or change sound depending on what goes before or after them. With ITA, children not only mastered reading quickly, but were able to write freely. Learning to write is harder than learning to read, especially for boys, and I feel the purely phonetic, logical approach of the ITA method particularly benefited them. Yes, it ultimately failed, but not because it was a flawed method. It failed because parents were not helped enough by schools to support their children or simply disliked something they did not understand. It also failed because publishers would not invest money by supporting it with a range of literature and the changeover period was not understood by teachers at junior level. JANET ENTWISTLE,
Chelmsford, Essex. BoTH my children were taught by the ITA method, and I believe this was why they were able to spell well and read fluently while still at infant school My five-year-old broke his leg and, while attending outpatients, pointed out and read the signs for orthopaedics and paediatrics. Mrs L. OWENS, Hull, E. Yorks.