When I was in first grade in the mid-1960s, I learned how to read by way of a phonetic alphabet called the Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA). In second grade, my class was transitioned back to the conventional Roman alphabet, which ITA pedagogy called TO (Traditional Orthography). As I child I was led to believe ITA was a noble and future-forward experiment that would give me a significant head start on language skills, which it may or may not have done -- perhaps my better-than-average language skills would have developed just as well under other circumstances. The school district abandoned this early literacy program after two years, and I recently learned from Abe Feinberg's book Every Child Left Behind that the '60s was a decade notorious for expensive, ineffectual experiments in education. However, the ITA Foundation still existed as of 2009, when they last updated their website. My question to the Edutopia community: did anyone else experience ITA, and if you did, was it an advantage, a disadvantage or of no consequence at all to your early elementary education?
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