Lorry<p>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?</p><p>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. </p><p>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.</p><p>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. </p><p>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. </p><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/jul/06/1960s-schools-experiment-created-new-alphabet-thousands-children-unable-to-spell" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">theguardian.com/education/2025</span><span class="invisible">/jul/06/1960s-schools-experiment-created-new-alphabet-thousands-children-unable-to-spell</span></a></p><p><a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/English" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>English</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Writing</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Education" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Education</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/ITA" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ITA</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Pittman" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Pittman</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Phonetics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Phonetics</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Schools" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Schools</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/UK" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>UK</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/GB" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>GB</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Lancashire" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Lancashire</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Poor" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Poor</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Kids" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Kids</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Language" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Language</span></a></p>