A COMPARISON OF THE INITIAL TEACHING ALPHABET AND THE TRADITIONAL ALPHABET IN FIRST-GRADE READING WAS CONDUCTED. SAMPLES WERE SELECTED FROM SEVEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS THAT WERE REPRESENTATIVE OF DIFFERING SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS. THE PUPILS WERE PAIRED INTO MATCHED GROUPS. AN EXPERIMENTAL GROUP WAS TAUGHT READING BY THE INITIAL TEACHING ALPHABET (ITA) METHOD. THE OTHER GROUP WAS TAUGHT BY THE TRADITIONAL ORTHOGRAPHY (TO) METHOD. STANDARDIZED READING TESTS WERE ADMINISTERED TO OBTAIN PERFORMANCE SCORES, AND ANALYSIS OF COVARIANCE EMPLOYED. DATA WERE ALSO COLLECTED BY OBSERVATIONS AND INTERVIEWS, AND CHI-SQUARE STATISTICS WERE USED FOR ANALYSIS. THE RESULTS INDICATED THAT THE ITA GROUPS GAINED SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER PERFORMANCE RATINGS ON A TEST USING ITA THAN THE CONTROL GROUPS WHO TOOK THE TEST IN THE TRADITIONAL FORM. THERE WERE NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES IN SCORES OF THE TOTAL GROUPS ON TESTS TAKEN IN THE TRADITIONAL ALPHABET. THE CONTROL GROUPS GAINED SIGNIFICANTLY IN SPELLING. THE NEED FOR FOLLOWUP STUDIES IN LATER GRADES WAS MENTIONED. (RS)