Pronouncing Orthography
It aimed to improve literacy education by eliminating the irregularities of conventional English orthography and adhering to the alphabetic principle, wherein every letter represented a specific sound.
The concept originated when a predecessor, orthography, English Phonotypic Alphabet aka Phonotypy, was trialled to teach literacy and promote orthographic reform.
Surprisingly, the newly literate transitioned effortlessly to conventional English, so the pedagogical theory developed that the best way to teach literacy was through an interim phonemic orthography.
[6][7] The idea that the phonemic irregularity of the English language was a major cause of the poor levels of literacy in the English-speaking world had been well established in the mid-19th century by works such as Alexander John Ellis's treatise Plea for Phonetic Spelling, or the Necessity of Orthographic Reform, in 1848.
[8] [note 1] Dr Edwin Leigh himself published a report quantifying the levels of illiteracy in the United States,[9] which he used to advocate for his Pronouncing Orthography.
[11] Leigh was convinced of the efficacy of Phonotypy as a tool to teach literacy but realised that parents, teachers and school district officials were sceptical as they could not read the writing used by their children.
[38] Over the period of its usage, Pronouncing Orthography was assessed in education journals,[39][40][41] and in reports of the American public school system, where the following advantages were documented: - It is desirable that the child who is just commencing his education should have something consistent and logical ,methodical and philosophical to employ his mind upon rather than something without either analogy or system for these first impressions have the power to change and fix the whole bent of the mind...[Superintendent William Torrey Harris][48]The 1878 Boston headmaster survey demonstrated that as schools gained experience of using Pronouncing Orthography so they became in-favour of its use.
The desire to speak eloquently and, in particular, to have correct received pronunciation was common in Britain and America during the 19th century, with the study of English orthoepy at its zenith.
[55] To this end, Leigh utilised the pronouncing dictionaries of John Walker & Benjamin Humphrey Smart, two of the leading orthoepists of the time to ensure his orthography resulted in correct pronunciation.
[image 4] Controversially, Leigh separated learning to read from learning to write; he described his position in his report to the Boston school committee: - As to script, I stated my own conviction that it has no proper connection with learning to read and my desire to know from the writing master whether the habits formed by such writing of such words on the slate by so young learners will not have a bad influence upon their future handwriting and whether they will not acquire the art better at a later period and by exercises designed specially for the acquisition of good habits and skill in penmanship....[Dr Edwin Leigh][57]Leigh also had no hand-written script versions of his letters because he relied on small, subtle embellishments to letters which were identifiable in print but unrecognisable in children's hand-writing.
[60][image 6] Pronouncing Orthography started to gradually fall into disuse in the later part of the 1870s and into the 1880s for two main reasons: - Most people initially learnt to read in early childhood.
When faced with an alternate orthography that many found bewildering and explanations from educationalists they could not comprehend, many people became adamantly opposed, often using anti-intellectual arguments against the evidence.
[61] In 1879, the new Superintendent, Samuel Elliott, withdrew Leigh's Pronouncing Orthography, documenting his prejudicial reasons: - If the child's home is one which has its books, the use of them will not prepare him for the primer which we put into his hands.
Upon its initial success, he became a staunch advocate but subsequently noticed the main deficiency in the method; this was that children learned to read too quickly and failed to comprehend meaning.
To address this perceived problem, Farnham invented the Sentence Method, which he published in 1881,[64] and widely promoted in the learned educational journals of the time.
[Massachusetts public school system published detailed records of the initial adoption and later discontinuance of Leigh's Pronunciation Orthography between 1867 and 1879].
[Missouri public school system published detailed records of the initial adoption but reporting of Leigh's method lapsed after 17 years; it was known to be used between 1867 and 1883].
[New York public school system published detailed records of the initial adoption and later discontinuance of Leigh's Pronunciation Orthography between 1869 and 1876].
