Discusses what studies of i.t.a. throughout the past eleven years have revealed for teachers and researchers in the field of reading. (TO)

THE NATURE, FUNCTIONS, AND TRANSITIONAL STAGE OF THE INITIAL TEACHING ALPHABET (I.T.A.) IN BEGINNING READING IN THE UNITED STATES ARE DISCUSSED. THE MEDIUM, I.T.A., WAS ORIGINALLY CONCEIVED AS A TRANSITIONAL ALPHABET, OF WHICH SPELLING IS AN INTEGRAL PART. THE MEDIUM IS DESIGNED TO RATIONALIZE THE DECODING PROCESS AND AT THE SAME TIME PROVIDE A…

This is a booklet in the Project IDEALS series which deals with the teaching of reading skills. It generally describes what reading is and what the basic principles of a reading program are. Various methods and approaches to teaching reading are listed; they are the language experience approach, phonic methods, the linguistics approach, programmed…

Describes selected plans of teaching reading--individualized reading, basal reader, initial teaching alphabet, language experience and color coding--and suggests each plan's inherent philosophy. (MM)

SOME IMPLICATIONS OF RESEARCH ARGUMENTS ARE PRESENTED FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF WIDER AND MORE RAPID READING AND FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE VARIED SKILLS BASIC TO SUCCESS IN ANY TYPE OF READING. IT IS SUGGESTED THAT READING BE TAUGHT WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF A WELL-ROUNDED LANGUAGE ARTS PROGRAM IN A MANNER THAT WILL PROMOTE EFFECTIVE LEARNING IN ALL…

The achievement of four groups of children as measured by the Stanford Achievement Test was compared at the end of the first, second, and third year of school. The four programs used were the initial teaching alphabet (i.t.a.), Words in Color (WIC), Phonetic Keys, and teacher-designed analytic programs. At the end of the first year there appeared…

A discussion of the computer-assisted instruction program in initial reading at Stanford University. The program consists of eight parts or strands that help the students learn the alphabet, a sight-word vocabulary of 700 words, spelling patterns within words, phonetic structures and comprehension of semantic categories and sentences. (Author)

Phonics teaches learners how to match the letters of the alphabet to the speech sounds they already know. At age five, children who are ready to learn to read have a vocabulary of some 5,000 words and understand far more than that when they hear them. The problem is that there are 44 sounds in English and only 26 letters in the alphabet. Phonics…

To achieve its purpose, an initial teaching orthography (i.t.o.) should be as simple in form and substance as possible; it should be phonemic rather than phonetic. The 40 sounds distinguished by Pitmanic shorthand and some provision for schwa can serve as a basic code. The symbols can be derived from either of two major sources--standardizing the…

Article focuses on the part played by the learning medium in the acquisition of both language skills in a second language. (Author)

The purpose of this project was to test the effectiveness of i.t.a. in teaching reading to first grade students in the Portland Public Schools. Some of the elements of the experimental design included the following: one experimental--i.t.a.--and one control--traditional orthography (TO)--class was formed in each of ten schools; teachers and…

Discusses a comparative study of three approaches used to minimize reading difficulties: words in color, the initial teaching alphabet, and the Lippincott Basic Reading Program. (SW)

AN EVALUATION OF THE I/T/A READING PROGRAM AT THE LAKEWOOD PUBLIC SCHOOLS CALLED FOR AN INVESTIGATION OF THE IMMEDIATE AND LONG TERM EFFECTS OF I/T/A INSTRUCTION IN READING AND VARIOUS AREAS OF LANGUAGE ARTS. AN EXPERIMENTAL GROUP OF 93 PUPILS WAS DIVIDED INTO TWO GROUPS, DEPENDING ON THE AMOUNT OF I/T/A INSTRUCTION GIVEN. ONE GROUP HAD 1 1/2…