The Initial Teaching Alphabet was an initiative in the UK in the 1960s and ’70s that was intended to make reading more intuitive for young students. It had almost double the number of letters as the standard ABCs. But many students never successfully transitioned away from it, and have lifelong problems with spelling as a result. Dominic Wyse, a professor at the Institute of Education at University College London, tells Host Marco Werman how the ITA came about and why it failed.
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