John Downing (1922–1987) was a British educational psychologist who started his career as a teacher then worked as an academic from 1960 until his death in 1987.
Fundamentally, Downing was an educational psychologist and his main lifetime achievement was the formulation of the cognitive clarity theory of learning to read.
[1][2] He emigrated from England to Canada in 1970 but spent several periods of time working in other parts of the world, especially the United States of America.
[3] Downing was known for his trademark dress code in which he wore bold check jackets with unusual bootlace badge ties, fashion characteristics which contrasted with his kind, quiet and scholarly manner.
In 1960, after his time at Unilever, Downing returned to the University of London and joined the Institute of Education where he took-up the newly formed role of director of the reading research unit.
[14] The reading research unit was created to run a trial of James Pitman's initial teaching alphabet, a novel approach to teaching children to read where an interim orthography, consisting of an alternative alphabet and regular spelling system were used instead of the irregular traditional English orthography.
Downing spent seven years in the role, studying the initial teaching alphabet, he was to credit this key time as providing him with the crucial insights which inspired the majority of his later academic work.
[14] In 1970, Downing took up the post of Professor of Psychological Foundations in Education at Victoria University, British Columbia, Canada, which he held until his death.
[16] He was amply supported by the fourteen colleagues in the reading research unit, in particular his deputy William Latham who was accredited in some of the academic publications.
[17] The unit was further supplemented by seven senior lecturers from educational colleges who served one-year secondments on a rotating basis.
but originally designed specifically around the nuances of traditional orthography, such as the Janet & John series of reading books.
A hundred and fifty years ago, Coleridge, anxious about his own child's progress in reading, complained about 'our lying alphabet'.
"[136] Downing replaced James Pitman, who was the founder of the initial teaching alphabet, as chairman of the simplified spelling society in 1972, a post he was to hold until his death.
[137] After his death, the society published the following obituary in its journal: - "John Downing carried out the crucial scientific research which not merely demonstrated how and why the initial teaching alphabet was educationally so superior to traditional orthography, but also provided solid evidence to support the Society's message that the level of literacy would benefit from improvements in English spelling.