A brief history of phonogram-based instruction

Teaching written symbols as representations of speech sounds is not new. Early alphabetic reading instruction naturally involved connecting letters with sounds.

Over time, however, reading programs differed in how explicitly and systematically they taught those relationships.In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, educators and researchers developed more organized systems for teaching English spelling patterns, word frequency, handwriting, and sound-symbol relationships.

One important influence was neurologist Samuel Orton, who studied children with serious reading difficulties. Orton emphasized direct teaching of the connections among spoken sounds, visual symbols, and written movements.

Romalda Spalding studied Orton’s ideas and developed the approach later published as The Writing Road to Reading. Her method brought together phonograms, handwriting, spelling dictation, reading, composition, and literary study. Spalding’s official program now describes The Writing Road to Reading as explicit, systematic, multisensory phonemic instruction for spelling, reading, and writing.

Wanda Sanseri later developed Spell to Write and Read, drawing heavily from the Spalding tradition while reorganizing and expanding materials for home educators, tutors, and classroom teachers.

Other modern programs, including Logic of English and All About Reading, also teach phonograms systematically, though their lesson structure, terminology, manipulatives, and treatment of spelling differ a bit.