Managing cognitive load as the key to literacy development: Research directions suggested by crosslinguistic research and research on Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA)

In recent years, orthographic complexity (the complexity of nations’ spelling systems) has been established as a key factor impacting ease and speed of early literacy development through the extent of cognitive load it creates for beginning readers. This chapter analyses and synthesises research findings from three large bodies of research, using cognitive load and orthographic complexity perspectives, towards useful research directions for optimising Anglophone reading, literacy development and instruction. The three corpuses are the research on reading and literacy development and instruction in Anglophone nations; research establishing crosslinguistic literacy differences between Anglophone and regular-orthography nations whose spelling is highly regular; and Anglophone research from past decades on schools using a fully-regular English orthography, the Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA). In recent decades there has been considerable research exploring crosslinguistic differences in reading development and difficulties. This establishes Anglophone word reading and literacy development as being much slower and more complicated, particularly for struggling readers. However, regular-orthography nations show expedited literacy development for virtually all children. This difference seems created by the high cognitive load of Anglophone early word-reading development. In the 1960s and early 1970s, there was considerable research in Anglophone nations exploring the impact of the Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA) in reducing cognitive load and expediting Anglophone early literacy development. While these bodies of research explore Anglophone reading and literacy development, difficulties, and instruction from different perspectives, their findings have much in common and suggest useful directions towards improving Anglophone literacy learning.