The 44 characters in the Initial Teaching Alphabet

It's written in the Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA), a system designed by Sir James Pitman - grandson of the man who devised Pitman's shorthand - to help young children learn to read more quickly.

It uses the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet and another 14 characters to represent sounds such as "oo" and "th". Sentences written in ITA are all in lower case.

It was introduced into several English schools in 1961, and soon spread to the United States and Australia.

New pupils - and their parents - were expected to read and spell using the expanded alphabet. Once they reached seven years old, the children had to switch to the standard alphabet and accepted spellings.

Illogical and inconsistent

Sir James's aim was to aid dyslexics and end illiteracy by providing children with a logical spelling system, in which words were made up of speech sounds.

If you make it easier to read and spell, children will learn faster

John Gledhill, Simplified Spelling Society

After all, about 13% of English words are not spelt the way they sound.

And, according to research published today, children take longer to learn basic reading skills in English than in other European languages.

Professor Philip Seymour, of the University of Dundee, says this is mainly because of the complex syllable structure and inconsistent spelling system of English.

Coded language

Sir James based the system on the "phonotypy" of Sir Isaac Pitman (his grandfather) and the "nue speling" of the Simplified Spelling Society, of which he was a member.

Many have come a cropper with spelling

The thinking went that as children became fluent in ITA, they would become aware of conventional spelling and move seamlessly into the normal alphabet.

Did it work? Opinions vary, but the system was never successfully made mainstream.

One former pupil has very strong views about it: "I suffered ITA for my first few years at school, with the consequence that at the age of seven I could barely read or write," he says.

And Edwin Robson, who was taught ITA in the 1960s, says many of his friends blame their poor spelling on being taught this system in their first year of school.

But he personally didn't have any problem, and can still remember it today.

His family still recounts the time when his sister went to stay with grandma in Northumberland, and wrote her first letter home to Newcastle.

"Grandma couldn't understand the contents of the ITA letter, but put it in an envelope and posted it home all the same. It read: 'We went to the beach. We saw two horses. They were pissing in the sea.'"

From ITA to txt msgs

John Gledhill, of the Simplified Spelling Society, says ITA was hailed as pioneering in its day.

"It fully demonstrated that if you make it easier to read and spell, children will learn faster. But it wasn't a long-term solution because the system was a bit messy."

Texting has taken off in the past two years

Although society members may raise a glass in memory of ITA, few now champion its use, Mr Gledhill says.

Instead, they are keen to see consistency, with double letters dropped, and a cull of the many and varied spellings for "e" sounds.

Although e-mail and text messages have filtered shortcuts into the language, these are not necessarily the same from person to person, Mr Gledhill says.

"People make up shortcuts as they go along, but these may not be understood outside their circle of friends."

But the enthusiasm for texting has made it clear that English speakers are frustrated with conventional spelling.

The sentence above reads: "The ice angel gave the owl a ring." It might be meaningless, but it illustrates some of the system's more unusual sound shapes.