ITA (Initial Teaching Alphabet). Anyone else a victim?

[NazNomad]

No wonder there are so many "uneducated" posts across so many forums.

I'm almost certain that ITA is not to blame for that.

 

[Bm101]

My cousin retired as an infant school headmistress 18 years ago and she maintained that probably 90% of children said to be dyslexic weren't - they were either bone idle (rarely) or extremely badly taught (very often) - an actual disability was rare. She ran what was the best infant school in the district.
(I'll get my head back below the parapet, now )

Fair point Phil, I wouldn't pretend to know much about dyslexia. I was trying to say (badly probably), I just wonder what would happen if schools were able to focus on all round education. I know it's probably a naive point, and any teachers reading this are thinking 'here we go'. I'm not knocking teachers (both my parents were teachers), but like everyone else they have to work within the system. Can I say 'system' without sounding like a paranoid conspiracy theorist? :?
But it does come back to providing better opportunities for different types of brains. Apprenticeships anyone? Let's look at technical abilities and so on. I wonder how many schools still run half decent workshops. I'm guessing there's not many left. And then after years of cutbacks the Government(s) scream about a lack of 'skills shortages'. I think maybe the regulation has taken over the learning.

As an aside, a recollection of a linked incident that provided me with one of my finest moments at school and one of my worst. It taught me a couple of things that I've never ever forgotten.
Might amuse you.

Riding home from school one day near the end of my exams in my 3rd year (the exams that would decide what group you went in for your GCSEs I got hit by a van. Took me under the bumper and dragged me about 10 metres down the road. I woke up to all these mums shouting at this poor fella (it was completely my fault) and my poor old cast iron raleigh winner was literally bent in half at 90 degrees. I loved that bike. For some reason I didn't have a scratch. Born lucky and stupid. Quite a combination.
Anyway so I missed the RE exam and the Maths exam. Now Maths was never my strong point at school.
A week later I'm back at school and this fella takes me to this little room and says, 'Right Chris, sit down there and do your maths exam, I'll be back in an hour.'
Now I'm looking at the test and it's all a bit baffling. Page 1/2/3... Bit tricky for me.

Then I look up.

On the shelf above me is all the test papers of everyone else in the year.
You can see what's coming can't you.
I rifle through them and find Neil Merrit's one. This fella is probably working for NASA now ok. Or he's in prison for a very long time.
Right, touch! So I copy out all his answers taking care to make a few wrong answers. Don't want to give the game away!

Sit there pleased as punch with how clever I am. Your man comes in after an hour and packs me off. 20 minutes later I've forgotten all about it. Glorious! 8)

*Let's fast forward a month or two. It's the new school year and we're being introduced into our new sets. I get my my timetable.
Not only have they put me in the top maths set, they've also put me in like an ultra-being algebra and relative thinking math set. With all the kids that have big foreheads and briefcases.

(homer)

I sit there for a whole year. Never occurred to me to own up. And I have No Idea Whatsover What Is even Being Said. Ever. At any point. Christ knows what the teacher made of me...
And then I did my mock GCSE...

So what did I learn?
As a negative? I sat through a YEAR of extra ultra-maths classes that I hated, not knowing what in the name of God what was going on. That's on top of normal maths classes.
On the positive side I learned a little about statistics. One U(nqualified) result will bring down the whole class average of A, to a B. They seemed quite angry about that TBF.
What was the life lesson that resonated most strongly? Well three things really.
1, Never pretend to know something you don't or try to seem more intelligent than you really are. It'll only be you that suffers in the end.
2, A moment of self gratification is rarely worth a years agonising suffering.
3, I hope Neil Merrit is in jail and not earning millions at NASA
6 and 7/5ths, I'm still not that great at maths unless it has the Queens head attached.

Dear me. Sorry for the wall of text. Once I started it was too late to go back.

 

[Vortex]

Luckily I wasn't, but a workmate of mine felt that the ITA ruined his chances, as he was unable to be deprogrammed.
He was however exceptionally capable, but had been left unable to write with confidence.
I'm surprised no one has picked this up for a class action.

I was a victim of this mad system. Confused the hell out of me for many years, I could still barely read and write when I left school. Wasn't until I was in my late teens when I wanted to study a subject, and I decided to teach myself to read and write properly that I started to get passed it. It ruined my chances and I've never fully recovered from it, always wondered why there was never a class action lawsuit over it.

 

[MattRoberts]

My wife is a head of a primary school. This looks like a very early and crude version of the phonics teaching they do these days. I think modern versions are much more proven to ease the transition between how words sound and how they're spelt

 

[DiscoStu]

The issue of targets is an impossible one. How do you know whether a school is doing a good job of teaching your children to pass their exams. You measure them. As soon as you do that teachers become focused on exams rather than learning. If you don't measure them then how do you know if the school is any good?

Actually I think soft skills that are difficult to measure are probably the most useful. Things like negotiation, debate, listening, reasoning and problem solving.

Why do kids need to know the times table or how to add up a column of figures? These tasks are easily achieved on a phone or PC and let's face it that is the real world these days. However ask a computer how to negotiated a better deal on the building contract your company is looking to implement and it can't help. These skills are what we should be teaching.


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[DiscoStu]

My cousin retired as an infant school headmistress 18 years ago and she maintained that probably 90% of children said to be dyslexic weren't - they were either bone idle (rarely) or extremely badly taught (very often) - an actual disability was rare. She ran what was the best infant school in the district.
(I'll get my head back below the parapet, now )

Phil as a parent of a child with Dyslexia that blanket sweeping accusation is disappointing. Actually I think I have two children with dyslexia one of whom isn't too bad and would certainly be within your 90% the other is very bad, yet she has just won an award at school for her tenacity and for never giving up or letting it get her down. Neither of my children are lazy and I certainly don't feel either have been badly taught. My daughter who suffers badly is in a small class of 6 for most lessons and she is taken out of two lessons a week for one to one help. In addition she is allowed to use her phone to photograph white boards etc and all of her teachers will give her hand outs when other children have to write down work. The school have been brilliant and I won't have teachers tarnished with broad sweeping comments.


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[Racers]

My cousin retired as an infant school headmistress 18 years ago and she maintained that probably 90% of children said to be dyslexic weren't - they were either bone idle (rarely) or extremely badly taught (very often) - an actual disability was rare. She ran what was the best infant school in the district.
(I'll get my head back below the parapet, now )

Phil as a parent of a child with Dyslexia that blanket sweeping accusation is disappointing. Actually I think I have two children with dyslexia one of whom isn't too bad and would certainly be within your 90% the other is very bad, yet she has just won an award at school for her tenacity and for never giving up or letting it get her down. Neither of my children are lazy and I certainly don't feel either have been badly taught. My daughter who suffers badly is in a small class of 6 for most lessons and she is taken out of two lessons a week for one to one help. In addition she is allowed to use her phone to photograph white boards etc and all of her teachers will give her hand outs when other children have to write down work. The school have been brilliant and I won't have teachers tarnished with broad sweeping comments.


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+1

I am badly dyslexic and it wasn't recognised while I was at school, they just thought I was thick, they didn't let me sit the English exam.

The worse disability are the ones you can't see.

Pete

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

I was taught ITA at school and quite late on I think, I'm not yet 50, it must have been 1973 when I was taught it. The transition to proper English, I still remember the feeling of being completely baffled. I could already read in the 'language' I knew, so what were we doing spelling everything different? I still remember ITA vividly. It was taught at the time when children's brains are most absorbent, and things taught then stick forever. Which means that things that should have been taught at that point but weren't, were harder learned later. It was utter madness! You could actually buy Ladybird books in ITA or proper English at the time.

Mike.

 

[Graham Orm]

 

[BearTricks]

I always thought I was decent at maths, but I was trying to work out the dimensions of an end grain cutting board recently and I had to actually sit down and make a times tables grid so I could stick it on my workshop wall. I haven't put any of it in to practice in so long that it has just fallen out of my head.

When I was in primary school I was in the top N% of students so they got in a special teacher to teach us advanced maths and english twice a week after school. I think it hurt me rather than helped - I think it instilled an idea that I was smarter than I was, and an inability to cope when I couldn't manage something. I only realised this after I'd left education all together. I don't think anyone in that class got close to being a rocket scientist; I think the best they managed was a GP.

I think the trend in education over the last 30 years has been to tell kids that they're special and that they can be whatever they want to be, which isn't at all true.

 

[DiscoStu]

I'd agree that it's not true that everyone is "special" and from what you've said I assume you mean that to be intelligent. However I do think kids should be encouraged to believe that they can achieve anything. There are hundreds of examples of very successful people who didn't do well at school or who had serious issues in their life. One that instantly strikes me is JK Rowling. She was pretty much homeless and had nothing and last time I looked she was worth an estimated 400m. Richard Branson is another who started flogging a few records. I've also got a friend who I don't think did very well at school. He needed a cable for a specific task he was doing and could only get the one he needed by buying a job lot of 20 or so from China. So he did and then sold the other 19 on eBay for a profit. So he then bought another batch and sold them. He now owns a reasonable size company selling cables and connectors etc (bit like Maplin or CPC) and is doing very well. So I think it's right to encourage children and tell them that they can achieve great things. We just shouldn't tell them that they are going to be the greatest English teacher if English isn't their thing. It's about finding the right fit.


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[mind_the_goat]

it's not so much that they need to be encouraged to aim for whatever it is they want to do, I see the current problem that many have no idea what they want to do, so don't even have anything to aim for. you can give someone the best the best Bow available and explain how to use it but with no target they are never going to be good at using it.

I'm confused about current teaching best practice, on the one hand there are tests to show a persons learning strengths and weaknesses, and on the other there has been research suggesting that teaching styles have little impact on learning, something I find very hard to believe.
I was lucky enough to taught the traditional way, the only major thing I can recall being mis-taught was the order of a maths equation, I never worked out why that couldn't be done properly from an early age.

 

[Barefootbaby]

I am still traumatised by the ITA method, I’m in my last 50’s. I am dyslexic and left handed and I’m sure ITA and impatient parents didn’t help. It made school so awful for me, i cant believe it might still be around. I worked hard to finally read and write and go on to get a degree but i never had confidence. Reading out loud was terrifying, words would jump around the page which later i found out was more to do with being dyslexic but not a good mix.

 

[Spectric]

My cousin retired as an infant school headmistress 18 years ago and she maintained that probably 90% of children said to be dyslexic weren't - they were either bone idle (rarely) or extremely badly taught (very often) - an actual disability was rare. She ran what was the best infant school in the district.

Yet the teachers seem to take the blame when kids fail, as they say you can lead a horse to water but cannot make it drink but even more obvious is that you cannot educate a brick.

 

[Jameshow]

My cousin retired as an infant school headmistress 18 years ago and she maintained that probably 90% of children said to be dyslexic weren't - they were either bone idle (rarely) or extremely badly taught (very often) - an actual disability was rare. She ran what was the best infant school in the district.
(I'll get my head back below the parapet, now )

She's a bit out of date I expect.
With two children with dyslexia its clear that the struggle with language and it's components. With a diagnosis and tutoring my daughter has moved from predicted English 6 to a 9...

 

[Phil Pascoe]

She didn't say all children. She taught many children successfully after being told by others that said children had all manner of problems.

 

[deema]

I would happy hang draw and quarter the ***** who thought of the system. I was educated in a comprehensive where it was all about the ideas rather than spelling and grammar. I’m in my 50’s and it’s still a constant source of embarrassment that I can’t spell (you just need to read any of my posts!). No. I have to correct myself, I’d burn the **** at the stake very very slowly as painfully as possible. All the modern carp they come up with is just that. Get the 3Rs right, maintain strict discipline so everyone has the opportunity to learn and F the rest of the twaddle they push for the last fifty years. Not that I have a very strong view on the subject.

 

[Jameshow]

I would happy hang draw and quarter the silly person who thought of the system. I was educated in a comprehensive where it was all about the ideas rather than spelling and grammar. I’m in my 50’s and it’s still a constant source of embarrassment that I can’t spell (you just need to read any of my posts!). No. I have to correct myself, I’d burn the **** at the stake very very slowly as painfully as possible. All the modern carp they come up with is just that. Get the 3Rs right, maintain strict discipline so everyone has the opportunity to learn and F the rest of the twaddle they push for the last fifty years. Not that I have a very strong view on the subject.

At least you went to a comp rather than a secondary modern!
3rs / spag had gone out the window when I was at school, not sure what I learnt!!

 

[Jester129]

The problem with that Deema is that the 'students' all know that the teacher is powerless to discipline them when required. The system will always fail when you have an unruly tw*t in the class (and the * isn't an 'i'!). It needs to be sorted somehow.

 

[HappyHacker]

I worked with a contract systems analyst, a very clever guy. He had been taught to read using ITA and as a result could not spell and had a terrible time trying to learn to read normal english which affected his exam results. He put it all down to ITA.

I went to a normal primary in the 50's and was taught using old school techniques but I have never been able to spell despite being often able to recognise incorrect spelling but I don't know the correct spelling! I suspect I recognise the pattern of the word. However I am an avid reader and have been since an early age.

I also went to a secondary modern but it did enable me to get 6 O levels and I then went to a grammar school for A levels and got better results, but not brilliant due to my laziness, than some who had been at the school since passing their 11 plus. Many of my contemporaries at the secondary school have had successful careers or own businesses so I do not accept the relentless criticism of secondary moderns.