Nursery World - Learning & Development: Literacy

A defunct alphabet that was used in schools in the 1960s and 70s provides important lessons for current approaches to the literacy teaching of young children, discovers Caroline Vollans

Ladybird has been producing familiar and much-loved children’s books for many decades, and most recently it has become best known for its novelty titles such as The Mid-Life Crisis, Dating and The Ex. However, in the early 1960s, Ladybird was well-known for a different trend: it took the decision to print many of its titles using ‘ita’ – the Initial Teaching Alphabet.

ita4 Ita was a device introduced into many British schools in 1961, later spreading to the USA and Australia. It was, essentially, a variant on the alphabet created with the intention of helping English-speaking children to learn to read easily and quickly. Interestingly, ita was the invention of Sir James Pitman, grandson of Sir Isaac Pitman who invented Pitman’s shorthand – another man ostensibly concerned with speed.

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