Initial Teaching Alphabet

Initial Teaching Alphabet, alphabet of 44 characters designed by Sir James Pitman to help children learn to read English more effectively. The Initial Teaching Alphabet is based on the phonemic (sound) system of English and uses the Roman alphabet, augmented by 14 additional characters, to represent each distinct sound with a separate symbol. It evolved from the “phonotypy” of Sir Isaac Pitman (grandfather of Sir James) and the “Nue Speling” of the Simplified Spelling Society of Great Britain. The Initial Teaching Alphabet adheres closely to traditional orthography but contains lowercase characters only; it retains certain conventions of English spelling, such as c and k to represent the same sound and double consonants. The Initial Teaching Alphabet was adopted on an experimental basis in some schools in England (beginning in 1960) and in the United States (beginning in 1963).