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 Roman alphabet by assigning each letter and digraph a single sound or supplementing the Roman alphabet by assigning a constant value to each of the 23 useful letters and by creating 17 or more new symbols. As far as possible, the i.t.o. should have only one symbol per sound and should regard the predominant spellings of traditional orthography (t.o.). The i.t.o. must have a similarity to t.o. that allows immediate readability for those familiar only with t.o. and permits easy transfer for i.t.o. students. An outstanding example of an i.t.o. which supplements the resources fo the Roman alphabet is the Initial Teaching Alphabet. An excellent example of a standardizing i.t.o. is World English Spelling. If it can be demonstrated that educational results from the standardizing i.t.o. are comparable with those of the supplementary type, the latter is preferable because of its similarity to t.o. References are listed. (BS)