Editing Initial Teaching Alphabet (section)

==Decline==
Any advantage of the ITA in making it easier for children to learn to read English was often offset by some children not being able to effectively transfer their ITA-reading skills to reading standard English orthography, or being generally confused by having to deal with two alphabets in their early years of reading. Certain alternative methods (such as associating sounds with colours, so that for example when the letter "c" writes a {{IPA|[k]}} sound it would be coloured with the same colour as the letter "k", but when "c" writes an {{IPA|[s]}} sound it could be coloured like "s", as in [[Words in Colour]] and Colour Story Reading<ref>{{Citation|author=J. K. Jones|date=1967|title=Colour Story Reading|location=London|publisher=Nelson}}</ref>) were found to have some of the advantages of the ITA without most of the disadvantages.<ref>
{{Cite journal|author=J. K. Jones|date=1968|title=Comparing i.t.a. with Colour Story Reading|journal=Educational Research|volume=10|issue=3|page=22 |doi=10.1080/0013188680100308}}</ref><ref>
{{Cite conference|author=J. K. Jones|chapter=Interim results in the Colour Story reading experiment|editor=J. C. Daniels|title=Reading: Problems and Perspectives|conference=Nottingham Reading Study Conference 1967|location=Stockport|publisher=United Kingdom Reading Association|year=1970|oclc=1110403098}}</ref>  Though the ITA was not originally intended to dictate one particular approach to teaching reading, it was often identified with [[phonics]] methods, and after the 1960s, the pendulum of educational theory swung away from phonics. The ITA was very rarely used by the 1970s.<ref name="e255">{{cite book | last=Sassoon | first=Rosemary | title=Handwriting of the Twentieth Century | publisher=Psychology Press| year=1999 | isbn=0-415-17882-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iraShWPHteAC&pg=PA132 | access-date=2024-06-20 | page=132}}</ref>

The ITA remains of interest in discussions about possible [[English language spelling reform|reforms of English spelling]].<ref>''Writing Systems'' by [[Geoffrey Sampson]] {{ISBN|0-8047-1756-7}} (Stanford University Press, 1985), p. 196</ref> There have been attempts to apply the ITA using only characters which can be found on the [[typewriter]] keyboard<ref>For a proposal by [[Edward Rondthaler]], see ''The Visible Word'' by Herbert Spencer (second edition 1969, {{ISBN|0-8038-7733-1}}), p. 79</ref> or in the basic [[ASCII]] [[character set]], to avoid the use of special symbols.

{| class="wikitable"
|+Rondthaler's proposal in The Visible Word
!colspan=11|Consonants
|-
! b || c || d || f || ɡ || h || j || k || l|| m || n
|-
| /b/ || /k/ || /d/ || /f/ || /ɡ/ || /h/ || /dʒ/ || /k/ || /l/ || /m/ || /n/
|-
! ng || p || r || s || t || v || w || y || z || zh
|-
| /ŋ/ || /p/ || /r/ || /s/ || /t/ || /v/ || /w/ || /j/ || /z/ || /ʒ/
|-
!colspan=5|Joined consonants || colspan=6|Short vowels
|-
! ch || sh || ht || th || wh || a || e || i || o || u || oo
|-
| /tʃ/ || /ʃ/ || /θ/ || /ð/ || /ʍ/ || /æ/ || /ɛ/ || /ɪ/ || /ɒ/ || /ʌ/ || /ʊ/
|-
!colspan=11|Long vowels/diphthongs
|-
! ah || ae || au || ee || oe || ooo || ue || ie || oi || ou 
|-
| /ɑː/ || /eɪ/ || /ɔː/ || /iː/ || /oʊ/ || /uː/ || /juː/ || /aɪ/ || /ɔɪ/ || /aʊ/ 
|}