Dear caring, concerned citizen:

There are an estimated 40 million illiterates above the age of 15 in the United States of America who are unable to fill out job applications and perform other relatively simple reading and writing tasks. They are rightly referred to as disadvantaged—extremely so.

All of us must spend years learning to read and write and spell—a never fully accomplished task. Professional proofreaders miss spelling misteaks in manuscripts. (I know. I've been one.) After so many years, graduate students and professors, still "orthographically challenged," pronounce unfamiliar words in a text on a basis of hit and miss—mostly miss. Our spelling drives foreigners trying to learn our language bonkers. Our dictionaries must give keys and guides to the pronunciation of every single word. Not true for the pronunciation of one single word in Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Finnish, Dutch, Swedish, Russian, etc., etc. Our computer software has to provide spelling checkers. We have spelling bees (unknown in countries with far superior writing systems) and are dazzled when the 14-year-old U.S. champion properly spells eleven words which, if we had a decent way to spell, could easily be handled by a kindergartner.

Remedial reading instruction and texts, tapes and diskettes for this constitute a major industry in our country. We spend years on what rightly ought to be accomplished in a few months—years that ought to be devoted instead to math, science, art, music, literature, creative and technical writing, history, geography, foreign languages, computer science and many other crucial, vital, exciting and enriching studies and pursuits. Billions of dollars are thrown at this, but the only true solution is suggested by the legend of the Gordian knot. No one could undo a knot tied by King Gordius of Phrygia. Then Alexander the Great came by and simply cut it in two with his sword. "Hey! Not fair!" we are apt to exclaim. So, is it fair that our children and all of us should be perpetually hogtied, strung up and hung up by our Gordian spelling, our brains and stomachs tied in knots by it, and millions... tragically... never managing to adequately cope with it and not infrequently giving up and dropping out in despair? Why should we citizens of supposedly progressive nations, the most advanced on earth, so unknowledgeably and senselessly cling to an ancient, impossibly irregular non-system of spelling that has no place in this space age, this computer age? Endowed with a nearly perfect Spanish spelling system, so-called "third world" countries like Bolivia and Cuba are actually leaving us in the dust in their efforts to eliminate illiteracy. Shouldn't a disgraceful, utterly mortifying fact like this finally move us to action? Let's cut this knot! Intelligently, resolutely, and without hesitation! With a Power Alphabet.

Throughout history, elitest upper classes, scribes—yes, and even scholars and teachers—have conspired to keep reading and writing difficult, arcane and exclusive, for their power, prestige, and profit rather than doing all in their power to lift up and uplift the exploited masses. Let's strike a blow against elitists of today who resist making spelling perfectly simple, scientific, logical, regular and easy for everyone. For the best rebuttal ever written against elitists who would have us believe that our writing system (Not!) is so glorious it shouldn't be touched, read Valter Tauli's article "Speech and Spelling" in Advances in the Creation and Revision of Writing Systems, edited by Joshua A. Fishman, Mouton, The Hague, 1977.


For its day, this 12th-century cart with solid wood wheels worked very well. Cartwrights could be proud of their workmanship. Now, of course, we have cars and trucks that far surpass horses and carts in power, load capacity and advantages and conveniences of all kinds. In the same century (approx. 1180 A.D.) a British monk named Orm tried to reform our spelling for the first time known to history. For his day, long before the development of computers, other space-age wonders and linguistic science, he could have been proud of his effort. How would you like to be the proud owner of a new pickup with wheels from this cart? How do you like spellings many centuries old like "ought" and others without number that are not fit for our day?

If a child were treed by a vicious dog, wouldn't we rush to the rescue? Ironically, our spelling has got us up a tree too. So to rescue our children and grandchildren, we must leap into an exciting, truly historic adventure. Unaccountably, we've somehow come to view our spelling as though crystallized in its present* form forever by unalterable laws of nature. Since we can't do anything about the weather all we do is talk about it. Something very definitely can be done about our spelling, so why delay? Let's take the leap with both feet and start talking and doing! No other generation has been up to it for over 800 years. Let the excitement and honor of the incredible achievement be ours.

The first and best thing to do is to become well informed and then inform others. For valuable up-to-date information and how to make effective use of it, read the remaining web pages at this site. The Training Wheels Alphabet Book shows (to the maximum extent possible in OldSpel) what an ideal spelling is like and demonstrates its unparalleled value, getting learners of any age off to a fast, secure, confidence-building start as they learn the alphabet and the alphabetic principle. Basically, it employs the sounds (technically, phonemes) most commonly attached to our traditional 26 letters. <a> is always as in <as>, not <all>, <g> as in <go>, not <gem>.For example, at, add, tack and hand are utilized but also, above, ate, many, half, laugh, etc. are not. The only digraphs allowed are simple ones which invariably represent one sound only (ck, dd, etc.). Bizarre relics of the type found in debt, freight, height, taught, fought, might, aisle, ocean, shoe, sugar, should, through, etc., etc., are not included.

So, phonemically speaking, The Training Wheels Alphabet Book is only a tiny bit less than perfect, and there is nothing better to give learners the support and confidence they need to get started. Try it out with a little child, as my 9- year-old granddaughter Heidi has with her 5-year-old sister Lisa—or with an older, possibly struggling learner—and discover how easy and speedy teaching and learning can be with a first reader which comes close to realizing the ideal of 100% space-age spelling. Please have a look at the brief descriptions of other items that further explain and demonstrate what this is all about. All of us will be "biliterate," of course, during the transition from the old to the nu. The nu, by far, no question, absolutely, hands down, no contest, is the easiest to learn.

The IRS has accorded tax-deductible status to individual and corporate donations to this long-overdue endeavor. Please participate as fully and enthusiastically as you can in this crucial history-making cause. We will be so grateful, and you will accord yourself a prominent place on history's honor roll as a deeply caring, concerned contributor to the space-age realization of Orm's 800-year-old dream.