Develop. Med. Child Neurol. 1969, 11, 547-555 New Experimental Evidence of the Effectiveness of i.t.a. in Preventing Disabilities of Reading and Spelling John Downing IMPORTANT new data have been obtained from the original experiment with i.t.a. (initial teaching alphabet). That i.t.a. reduced the proportion of poor readers and poor spellers is shown by two new sources of evidence: (1) the results of focusing a new analysis of the original data on the relative incidence of low scores in i.t.a and T.O. (traditional orthography) classes, and (2) the results of follow-up tests admin- istered in the fifth year of school. 1. Vernon’s Criticism of the Original Analysis The design and methods of the original experiment have been described in Down- ing (1967a). Briefly, an experimental group of infants school beginners learned to read with i.t.a. and were compared with a matched control group learning T.O. from the outset. Both groups were treated identically, apart from the difference between the writing-systems (i.e., the i.t.a. and T.O. alphabets and spellings). For example, both groups received the same linguistic stimuli from their reading books because both used the Janet and John series of readers, the experimental group having them printed in i.t.a. and the con- trol group in T.O. The backgrounds of the subjects in the two groups were matched for non-verbal and verbal intelligence, social class, age, sex and the following school variables; urban/rural location, infants only or infants and juniors com- bined organizations, size of school, pupil/ teacher ratio, amenities of the building. The matching procedure was applied separately to each measure used in the experiment. Thus, although the numbers of subjects tested fell rapidly during the experiment, these losses should not cause any bias. [On this point, see Downing (1967b), pp. 128-130 and 148-152.1 In the ‘i.t.a. Symposium’ (Downing 1967a), Downing’s research report was criticized by Vernon (1967) as follows : ‘Contrary to Downing’s conclusion, there were fewer children of poor reading ability in the i.t.a. than in the T.O. group.’ Cp. 158). Vernon was criticizing Downing’s con- clusion that i.t.a. appeared to benefit most those children who were the highest achievers anyway, and that the poorest achieving ten per cent of the i.t.a. sample showed no measurable improvement over Department of Psychology, University of London Institute of Education, Malet Street, London, W.C.I. 547
Transcript
Develop. Med. Child Neurol. 1969, 11, 547-555
New Experimental Evidence of the Effectiveness of i.t.a. in Preventing Disabilities of Reading and
Spelling John Downing
IMPORTANT new data have been obtained from the original experiment with i.t.a. (initial teaching alphabet). That i.t.a. reduced the proportion of poor readers and poor spellers is shown by two new sources of evidence: (1) the results of focusing a new analysis of the original data on the relative incidence of low scores in i.t.a and T.O. (traditional orthography) classes, and (2) the results of follow-up tests admin- istered in the fifth year of school.
1. Vernon’s Criticism of the Original Analysis
The design and methods of the original experiment have been described in Down- ing (1967a). Briefly, an experimental group of infants school beginners learned to read with i.t.a. and were compared with a matched control group learning T.O. from the outset. Both groups were treated identically, apart from the difference between the writing-systems (i.e., the i.t.a. and T.O. alphabets and spellings). For example, both groups received the same linguistic stimuli from their reading books because both used the Janet and John series of readers, the experimental group
having them printed in i.t.a. and the con- trol group in T.O. The backgrounds of the subjects in the two groups were matched for non-verbal and verbal intelligence, social class, age, sex and the following school variables; urban/rural location, infants only or infants and juniors com- bined organizations, size of school, pupil/ teacher ratio, amenities of the building. The matching procedure was applied separately to each measure used in the experiment. Thus, although the numbers of subjects tested fell rapidly during the experiment, these losses should not cause any bias. [On this point, see Downing (1967b), pp. 128-130 and 148-152.1
In the ‘i.t.a. Symposium’ (Downing 1967a), Downing’s research report was criticized by Vernon (1 967) as follows :
‘Contrary to Downing’s conclusion, there were fewer children of poor reading ability in the i.t.a. than in the T.O. group.’ Cp. 158). Vernon was criticizing Downing’s con-
clusion that i.t.a. appeared to benefit most those children who were the highest achievers anyway, and that the poorest achieving ten per cent of the i.t.a. sample showed no measurable improvement over
Department of Psychology, University of London Institute of Education, Malet Street, London, W.C.I. 547
DEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE AND CHILD NEUROLOGY. 1969, 11
the corresponding bottom ten per cent in the T.O. sample.
This difference between the views of Downing and Vernon arises from two alternative ways of approaching the data. Downing attempted to answer the question, ‘Is there any difference in the average scores of i.t.a. and T.O. pupils in the poorest achieving ten per cent of the population?’ Vernon’s approach seems to be based on the question, ‘Are there fewer poorer readers in the i.t.a. group?
The difficulty in Downing’s original approach is the insensitivity of standardized tests to differences in the lowest levels of attainment. His method of averaging the scores of the poorest achieving ten per cent may have reduced the sensitivity still further. Vernon’s approach may be pre- ferred because it makes fuller use of the information in the raw data and thus may be more sensitive to real differences between the i.t.a. and T.O. groups. These considerations led to the reanalysis of the original data using the approach suggested by Vernon’s criticism.
2. Results of the Re-appraisal Although Vernon was referring only to
the results of the Neale Analysis of Read- ing Ability (ARA) administered in T.O. to both groups at the end of the third year, eh method of comparing the proportion of poor readers in the i.t.a. and T.O. groups has since been applied to all the tests with the following results.
(a) Progress through the Reading Series Table I and Fig. 1 refer to children’s
progress through the Janet and John series. Vernon’s point was strongly supported
even by the original analysis. This showed that after one year there were 61.6 per cent of the i.t.a. group, compared with 81 - 1 per cent of T.O. pupils in its lowest category, Book I1 or below. Four months later only 31.0 per cent of i.t.a. pupils
remained at this ‘poor reader’ level, but 54.8 per cent of the T.O. pupils had not moved out of this category. At the end of two years of school, children still on Book I1 or an even easier book may more aptly be described as ‘poor readers’, and by then there were only 17.7 per cent at that level in the i.t.a. group but there were still 35.7 per cent in the T.O. group-about twice as many. Four months later only 10- 1 per cent of the i.t.a. group remained at this low level, compared with 25 .9 per cent of the T.O. group.
Table I provides a more detailed break- down of the original category of ‘poor readers’. Within this, it seems clear that the proportion of i.t.a. pupils who might be termed ‘very poor readers’4.e.’ on Book I or below- is always much smaller than the proportion of T.O. ‘very poor readers’. Fig. 1 shows that, at each stage in the experiment, the reduction in the pro- portion of ‘very poor readers’ was con- sistently greater in the i.t.a. group.
Statistical tests of significance in the original report of the data on children’s progress through the Janet and John series showed that the overall difference between the i.t.a. and T.O. groups on all four occasions was significant at the 0.1 per cent level (Kolmogorov-Smirnov one- tailed test). The differences between the proportion of i.t.a. and T.O. subjects on Book I or below in this new analysis at each of the four stages is significant also at the 0.1 per cent level (xa = 65.60; 41-30; 14.70; 11-50).
(b) Pre-transition Reading Tests In the first 1* years the children in the
i.t.a. group were tested in i.t.a., while T.O. pupils received T.O. versions of the same tests. Fig. 2 is a summary of the results of five such tests comparing the proportion of very poor and poor readers in the i.t.a. and T.O. groups. ‘Very poor’ refers to the lowest category of scoring on each test, and
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JOHN DOWNING
TABLE I Percentage of i.t.a. and T.O. Pupils at Different Reading Levels
Fig. 1. Proportion of very poor readers (Le., still on Book I or below) in i.t.a. and T.O. groups at pro-
gressive stages
‘poor’ refers to the next to lowest category. On all of these tests there were fewer
very poor and poor readers in the i.t.a. group than in the T.O. group. On the first administration of the Schonell Graded Word Reading Test (GWRT) at the end of
0.7
1.2 0.7 2.5 i . 4 4-7 1 3.2
14.8 10.7 9 -7 5.3
17.8 I 1 4 . 0 89.9
82-3 64.3 I 74.1 333 I 278 333 I 278
the first year, more than 75 per cent of the T.O. pupils were in the two lowest scoring categories combined ( i e . , 0-4 and 5-9). But the i.t.a. group had only about 50 per cent scoring at these levels. In the poorest category of all were 62.3 per cent of the T.O. group, but only 36.2 per cent of the i.t.a. group.
Four months later 43.9 per cent of T.O. pupils scored nine or less, but this was reduced to only 21 -2 per cent of the i.t.a. group. Thus there were less than half as many poor and very poor readers in the i.t.a. group by this stage. 14.4per cent were in the very poor scoring category, compared with 27-7 per cent of T.O. pupils.
Similar results were obtained on two of the sub-tests of the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability in the middle of the second year. On the Accuracy subtest, 54.4 per cent of T.O. pupils were in either the nil score category (‘very poor’) or scored between one and ten (‘poor’). The corresponding proportion in the i.t.a. group was again only about half as great i.e., 27.7 per cent. The proportion of pupils scoring nil on this subtest was 20.0 per cent in the T.O. group but only 8 - 5 per cent in the i.t.a. group.
The comprehension subtest also showed fewer very poor and poor readers in the
549
DEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE AND CHILD NEUROLOGY. 1969, 11
Fig. 2. Proportion of low scores on reading tests administered in i.t.a. to i.t.a. group and in T.O. to T.O. group. (For actual scores see text)
i.t.a. group; 10.0 per cent of i.t.a. pupils and 19.6 per cent of T.O. pupils scored nil. A score of between one and five was obtained by 36-8 per cent of the i.t.a. group, compared with 49.7 per cent of the T.O. group. Thus 53.2 per cent of the i.t.a. pupils but only 30.7 per cent of the T.O. pupils scored more than five.
On the reading rate subtest the trend was less marked. 17.4 per cent of the i.t.a. pupils and 19.4 per cent of the T.O. pupils read less than ten words per minute. All the differences discussed above are signifi- cant beyond the 0- 1 per cent level except on this one measure of reading rate, in which there was no significant difference between the i.t.a. and T.O. groups. The values of chi-square are shown in Fig. 2.
(c) Post-transition Reading Tests From the middle of the second year,
i.t.a. pupils were tested in T.O. with exactly the same tests as the T.O. pupils. The com-
parative proportions of very poor and poor readers in the two groups as measured by these tests are summarized in Fig. 3. In the rest of this report, the statistical
significance (using chi-square) of the differences between the i.t.a. and T.O. groups is indicated as follows:
N.S. = Not significant at 5 per cent level (i.e., p <0.05)
* = Significant at 5 per cent level t = Significant at 1 per cent level $ = Significant at 0.1 per cent level Values of chi-square are quoted in the
relevant Figures. On the introduction of T.O. testing there
seems to be little, if any, difference between i.t.a. and T.O. groups. This is hardly surprising because this analysis is concerned with the slowest learners, and in the i.t.a. group they would still be reading and writing in i.t.a., whereas the tests were administered in T.O. What may perhaps be surprising is that the proportion of low
550
JOHN DOWNING
% O 20 40 60 80 100 I I , , . , , I , , i
1.5 Years - Neale ARA N
Accuracy i*t*a* 457 T. 0.
Rate i.t.a. T. 0. 4 57
457 [Cornpre- 1.t.a. m - 1 ( i
hension T.O.
Besinnine 3rd vear
291 Schonell i.t.a. GWRT T.O.
Accuracy i.t*a* 194 T. 0.
Rate i.t.a. T. 0.
Compre- i.t.a. hension T.O.
Standish - End 3rd vear
194
194
Chi Square 1 Poor or
combined
0.0073 0.1120
0.0685 1.2900
0.1866 2.5300
1.2500 0.3566
0.7164 4.9170
0.3439 0.0615
0.4106 7.2890
0.2976 2.4680
hension
Key : = Very poor Poor Better Scoring
category : Lowest Next to lowest Higher
Fig. 3. Proportion of low scores on reading tests when administered in T.O. to both groups. (For actual scores see text)
T.O. test scores in the i.t.a. group was generally not greater than in the T.O. group at this stage. In the second half of the second school year, 41 per cent of i.t.a. and 42 per cent of T.O. pupils scored ten or less for accuracy on the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability. On the other subtests the proportion of pupils in the two lowest scoring categories were: for rate, 22.7 per cent i.t.a., 19.5 per cent T.O.; and for comprehension, 50.8 per cent i.t.a., 56.0 per cent T.O. (all N.S.).
In the first term of the third year the differences remain smaller. On the Schonell Graded Word Reading Test 21.3 per cent
of the i.t.a. group compared with 23.3 per cent of the T.O. group were in the two lowest scoring categories. But only 10.0 per cent of i.t.a. pupils were in the very poorest category (0-4) while 14.4 per cent of T.O. pupils were at this level (N.S.).
The earlier trend appears to return by the end of the third year in the results of the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability. By this time only 9.8 per cent of i.t.a. pupils scored ten or less for accuracy, while the proportion was almost twice as great (1 7 - 5 per cent) in the T.O. group*. There was again little difference in reading rate (N.S.), but in comprehension there were
55 1
DEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE AND CHILD NEUROLOGY. 1969, 11
10
fewer poor readers in the i.t.a. group than in the T.O. group (14.0 compared with 24.8 per cent).? The Standish Silent Reading Comprehension Test also pro- duced results suggesting the same trend (but N.S.). 17.7 per cent of L a . pupils scored five or less, compared with 24.6 per cent of the T.O. group.
I I
-
,.a a 5
(d) T.O. Spelling Attainments The Schonell Graded Word Spelling Test
(GWST) was administered in mid-third year and again in mid-fourth year. Fig. 4 shows the proportions of pupils in the i.t.a. and T.O. groups who scored either 0-4 or 5-9 in these two tests.
The first test of T.O. spelling ability shows again fewer poor and very poor achievers in the i.t.a. group than in the T.O. group: 16.6 per cent of the T.O. pupils but only 8.8 per cent of the i.t.a. pupils scored less than ten (xa = 10- 140)t. In the poorest category of all (0-4) the proportions were 11 -0 per cent of the T.O. pupils and 4:8 per cent of the i.t.a. group
In the second test, 6.8 per cent of the T.O. pupils and 3-0 per cent of the i.t.a. pupils scored less than ten. But the number of children involved is very small and therefore one must consider a wider range of poor scores. In Fig. 5 all scores below thirty-five are considered : 56-9 per cent of T.O. pupils, compared with only 39.2 per
(xa = 9*85O).t
0 20 40 60 80 100 I I . . r I I I . I .
AIter 2 . 5 years N
314 ,.LA T. 0.
Schurwll GWST
t.1.a. 102 T. 0.
Key : H Very pour H Poor Better Scoring
category : Lowest Next to luwest Hither
Fig. 4. Proportion of low scores on spelling tests administered for T.O. spelling to both groups. (For
actual scores see text)
cent of i.t.a. pupils had scores below thirty- five (xa = 6.550).*
3. Follow-up Tests Recently Downing and Latham (in the
press) have produced the results of follow- up tests of some of these subjects in the fifth year of school. Here, the results of the very poor and poor achievers are presented for the first time.
The tests used were the N.F.E.R. Sentence Reading Test 1, which is a group silent reading comprehension test, and the N.F.E.R. English Progress Test B which is a battery of tests of English usage. The former was administered rather early in the fifth year and the latter at the end of that year.
On both tests and on every subtest the trend is the same. The proportion of poor and very poor scores is considerably smaller in the i.t.a. group than in the T.O. group. On the sentence silent reading compre- hension test in the fifth year of school, 2.6 per cent of i.t.a. pupils but 14-1 per cent of T.O. pupils scored five or less (xz = 6’790)t (N = 78 for each group). On the full English Progress Test, 13.1
per cent of i.t.a. pupils and 32.6 per cent of T.O. pupils scored nine or less (xa = 9-970)t. For the subtests the proportions
30
20
0-4 5-9 10-14 15-19 m a r z5-a 30-34
Fig. 5. Progress in spelling after 3* years.
Beoras on &hone11 GWST
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JOHN DOWNING
i.t.a. %
18.5 10.9 29-4 39.1 8.7
33.7
were as shown in Table I1 (N = 92 for in the 0-1 scoring category of ‘poor’ each group). achievements.? On the same subtests, the
On every subtest except story compre- proportion of (‘very poor’) nil scores was hension (N.S.) the i.t.a. group had a sub- significantly smaller in the i.t.a. group.? stantially smaller proportion of children Thus the tendency for i.t.a. to produce
TABLE I1 Proportions of Pupils in i.t.a. and T.O. groups scoring 0 or 0-1 on Subtests
~
1 Capital letters . . 14.1 Story Comprehension . . Past and Present Tenses Spelling Sentence cbmpletion . . 6.5 Abbreviations . . I 31.5
Subtesr i.t.a. I % T.O.
% 31 * S 14.1 41 * 3 42.4 22.8 53.3
x4
7.890 1.344
10.268 8.010 9.770 8.900
score = 0-1 I
20 40 60 80 100
After 4 .5 y e a r s N
78 Sentence i.ta. reading T.O.
English i.t.a. progress T. 0.
92
92 Capital i.t.a. letters T.O. sub-test Story com- i.t.a. prehension T. 0. sub- tes t Past and i.t.a. Present T. 0. t enses sub- test Spelling i-t-a. 92 sub-test T. 0.
Sentence i t a completion i.’o: 92 sub- tes t Abbrevia- i.t.a.
92 tions T. 0. sub-test
92
92
Key : Scoring
Very Poor Poor Bet te r
category : Lowest Next tolowest Higher Fig. 6. Proportion of low scores on reading and English usage tests administered in
T.O. in fifth year. (For actual scores see text)
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DEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE AND CHILD NEUROLOGY. 1969, 11
fewer poor and very poor achievers is maintained until the end of the fifth year and is generalised to a variety of English language skills. Fig. 6 represents this graphically.
4. Discussion Gulliford (1967) has commented as
follows: ‘But a more potent argument for i.t.a. would be available if it could be shown that its use resulted in fewer failures in reading.’ There is a problem here as to the definition of ‘failure in reading’. Reading skill is not an all-or- none condition, but one which is con- tinually developing. Therefore, it seems more appropriate to compare i.t.a. and T.O. in terms of the proportion of children of relatively poor reading ability found in the experimental and control groups. When this comparison is made, it becomes clear that Vernon’s conclusion that ‘there were fewer children of poor reading ability in the i.t.a. than the T.O. group’ has wider generality in this experiment. On all tests, except those of reading rate, there were fewer very poor and poor scores from pupils who began with i.t.a. than from children who started on T.O. This applied both to reading in i.t.a. and to
reading in T.O. after the transition stage, particularly when sufficient time was allowed for the transfer process to occur. Furthermore, this superiority of the i.t.a. group continued until the end of the fifth year, which was the latest time at which tests were administered. The generalization that i.t.a. produced fewer poor achievers than T.O. also extends into other English language skills. The eivdence is especially strong that i.t.a. produced fewer poor spellers. Three consecutive T.O. spelling tests in the third, fourth and fifth years showed the same trend.
The present findings are also supported by Downing’s (1968) survey of the effects of i.t.a. in E.S.N. schoo1s.l Teachers in these schools believe that i.t.a. is generally superior to T.O. for mentally retarded pupils.
In conclusion, it seems from these new research data that, although i.t.a. had its best results with the average and above average achievers in the sample studied, and, although i.t.a. was not a panacea, nevertheless i.t.a. did reduce the propor- tion of relatively poor readers and poor spellers in this population.
E.S.N. = Educationally subnormal.
SUMMARY A new analysis of the data from the original Initial Teaching Alphabet (i.t.a.) experiment has been focused on the relative incidence of poor and very poor readers and spellers in i.t.a. and T.O. (traditional orthography) classes. This shows that i.t.a. reduces the propor- tion of poor achievements both in reading and in spelling. The results of new follow-up tests show that these advantages of i.t.a. persist until at least the end of the fifth year of school.
RESUME Nouvelles indications experimentales de l’eficacitd de 1’i.t.a. dans la prevention de la dislexie,
disorthographie Une nouvelle analyse des donnCes fournies par les expiriences de l’i.t.a. (initial teaching
alphabet) montre la frkquence relative des troubles d’apprentissage de lecture et d’ortho- graphe, graves ou tres graves dans les classes utilisant l’i.t.a. d’une part et les classes tradi- tionnelles. Ceci indique que l’utilisation de l’i.t.a, reduit la proportion d’insuffisance & la fois en lecture et en orthographe. Les rCsultats de nouveaux tests d‘observation prolongee
554
JOHN DOWNING
indiquent que les avantages de 1’i.t.a. persistent au moins jusqu’a la fin de la cinquibme annCe &etudes scolaires.
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Neue Untersuchungsergebnisse uber den Erfolg des i.t.a. zur Vermeidung von Lese- und
Schreibsch wierigkeiten Eine neue Auswertung der Ergebnisse aus der urspriinglichen ‘Initial Teaching Alphabet’
(i.t.a.). Untersuchung ist auf die relative Haufigkeit schwacher und sehr schwacher Leistugen irn Lesen und Schreiben in den i.t.a. und T.O. (traditional orthography) Klassen aus- gerichtet worden. Dadurch wird gezeigt, daB i.t.a. den Anteil schlechter Leistungen im Lesen und Schreiben vermindert. Die Ergebnisse neuer Nachuntersuchungen zeigen, daB diese Vorteile des i.t.a.-Systems mindestens bis zurn Ende des 5. Schuljahres anhalten.
RESUMEN Neuva evidencia experimental de la efectividad del ‘i.t.a.’ (alfabeto para la enseiianza inicial)
en la prevencidn de inhabilidad para leer y deletrear Un nuevo aniilisis de 10s datos del primer experiment0 en el us0 del ‘i.t.a.’ ha estudiado
especialmente la incidencia relativa de lectores y de deletreadores pobres y muy pobres, en clases donde se utiliza el i.t.a. y en les en que se emplea la T.O. (ortografia tradicional). Este aniilisis muestra que el us0 del i.t.a. reduce la proporci6n de lectura y de deletreo pobres. Los resultados de nuevos tests de 10s progresos subsiguientes muestran que estas ventajas del i.t.a. duran hasta por lo menos el fin del quinto aiio escolar.
REFERENCES Downing, J. (1967a) Evaluating the Initial Teaching Alphabet. London: Cassell. - (3967b) The i.t.a. Symposium. Slough, Bucks: N.F.E.R. in England & Wales. - (1968) ‘The initial teaching alphabet and educationally subnormal children.’ Develop. Med. Child Neurol.,
- Latham, W. ‘A follow-up of children in the first i.t.a. experiment.’ Brit. J. educ. Psychol. (in the press). Gulliford, R. (1967) ‘Evaluations-4.’ In Downing, J . The i.t.a. Symposium. Slough, Bucks: N.F.E.R. in
Vernon, M. D. (1967) ‘Evaluations-11.’ Ibid, p. 155.
