In my school, there were the 3 classes of each grade. So, like many other parents, my parents requested that I be put into Mrs. Dunwoody's class. She was a great teacher in many, many memorable ways. However, being in her class meant that I would be in a two year program for the first and second grade. In first grade, I had ITA.
Now, until I just Google it, I did not know that it stood for The Initial Teaching Alphabet. We had an alphabet with 44 letters and special books.
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| THE ALPHABET |
We learned how to read and write very quickly; everything was phonetic. In second grade, we were switched over to regular English and 26 letters. I have been a terrible speller since the 2nd grade.
My re-interest in this subject came from a REALTOR® friend on FB, who made comments today about listings. The discussion came from another agent using ALL CAPITAL LETTERS in a listing, but the discussion grew into spelling errors. I think I have another BLOG in me to discuss grammar and spelling, but it made me think back on my own failing in this same realm. I am definitely a poor speller.
So, I went home and Googled this program I was in when I was 6 years old. I knew that it was a program that came from the UK. It, apparently, made it to the USA and Australia as well. The billboards on the web were all the same. It seems we all have become poor, life long spellers. We all learned to read and write quickly with 44 letters, but all seemed to have struggled beyond that. It seems the program was more widely used in The UK as most of the comments came from there.
To give you an idea of what we wrote and read, here are two examples:
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| Initial Teaching Alphabet |
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| The ice angel gave the owl a ring. |
WIKIPEDIA ON THE INITIAL TEACHING ALPHABET
