Lorry on Nostr: This is interesting to me, at least. It looks like they trialled this in poorer areas ...

This is interesting to me, at least. It looks like they trialled this in poorer areas of the country, so mostly I see Lancashire in the article, but also Plymouth; possibly places where kids wouldn't be expected to have access to books at home?

I went to school at a very early age, to a day-boarding school. They taught ITA and normal English together, I think, at least, I could read normal English, but I thought in ITA and still do.

If you ask me to spell something, I spell it in my head in the phonetic alphabet (ah, bu, ker, der, eh, pff, ger) and I have a mostly instinctive translation mechanism that translates it to normal English style before I speak it; except when I have to actually think about the spelling, and split my brain, then it comes out phonetically, I have to experiment with the spelling in phonetics before I can convert - I just can't think in normal English.

I am not sure it messed me up much. I have learned to spell, but some words don't make sense to me (which is just English), and some I am stubborn about.

I also collect ITA books now, the first one I got after 50 years or so, I realised I could read perfectly. I'd never thought about what happened to ITA, maybe I was lucky that I used both and wasn't suddenly hit with a whole new reading language; but I do wonder where it went, and when I stopped using it.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/jul/06/1960s-schools-experiment-created-new-alphabet-thousands-children-unable-to-spell

#English #Writing #Education #ITA #Pittman #Phonetics #Schools #UK #GB #Lancashire #Poor #Kids #Language