Edwin Leigh (1815–1890) was an American educationalist who invented Pronouncing Orthography to improve literacy and elocution in American children in the late 19th century. The new orthography was widely adopted in the United States, with most basal reading schemes publishing versions for use with phonetic teaching methods. Education journals, governing bodies of public schools and teacher surveys reported that children learned to read 6–12 months faster with improved elocution, spelling and logical thinking in subjects like arithmetic. Leigh won the Medal of Progress at the Vienna Exposition of 1873 for his invention of Pronouncing Orthography.
26-463: The English Phonotypic Alphabet is a phonetic alphabet developed by Sir Isaac Pitman and Alexander John Ellis originally as an English language spelling reform . Although never gaining wide acceptance, elements of it were incorporated into the modern International Phonetic Alphabet . It was originally published in June 1845. Subsequently, adaptations were published which extended the alphabet to
52-485: A fair degree of success as it spread across the United States and was adopted by all the major basal reading schemes of the time. Articles in education journals, surveys of teachers and reports in the public school records all testified to its success in improving reading, elocution, spelling and logical thinking so children also became better at subjects like arithmetic. The remarkable nature of Leigh's invention
78-613: A teacher in Bristol, Rhode Island ⠀in the gap between leaving the clergy and starting to study medicine. After quitting his medical career in 1854, Leigh returned to teaching by moving to St. Louis, Missouri, where he took up a post as a teacher of natural history in the High School and the Principle of its Evening School. Leigh also became associated with a department in the city's University and produced several key reports, such as
104-419: A transitionary mechanism to attain literacy in standard English; instead, people had only realised it could be used this way after it was launched. Subsequently, Leigh designed a successor, Pronouncing Orthography , which was explicitly designed for this purpose, and to this end, it superseded Phonotypy as a transitory orthography toward literacy. Phonetic Too Many Requests If you report this error to
130-638: A variant of the English Phonotypic Alphabet known as the Cincinnati Phonotypy or the American Phonetic Alphabet . This type was used by Longley Brothers to publish a set of reading-books: - a first phonetic reader, a second phonetic reader, and a transition reader. In the 1852-53 annual report of Waltham's school committee, the chairman, Reverend Thomas Hill , reported the effect of Phonotypy on
156-716: The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to proselytise in Asia Minor. Unfortunately, his wife's health forced Leigh to change his mind and seek a position within the priesthood instead. After acting as "stated supply" in the congregations of Kennebunk, Maine (1839–1840) and Winchendon, Massachusetts (1841–1842), he was eventually ordained pastor over a Congregational church in Woonsocket (Smithfield), Rhode Island on August 2, 1843. Still, Leigh became dissatisfied after attaining his desired position, so
182-586: The Bird's eye view of Slavery in Missouri (1862), which was published amid the American Civil War and provided the demographic view to enable the emancipation of slavery in Missouri. From the moment Fonotypy was published as an exemplar of an alternative English orthography in 1844, Leigh both studied its design and then trialled its use as an interim teaching orthography. Leigh became convinced of
208-522: The German , Arabic , Spanish , Tuscan , French , Welsh , Italian , Dutch , Polish , Portuguese and Sanskrit languages. The English Phonotypic Alphabet was a phonotype, which is a phonetic form of printing derived from the Greek root " phon- " for voice and "- typ " for type. As such, Pitman and Ellis gave their alphabet the alternative name of Phonotypy or, even more phonetically, Fonotypy. It
234-501: The great uncial codices and the authorised version of the bible. In 1847, Leigh turned to study medicine at the Tremont Medical School, Boston, which was linked to Harvard Medical School , where Leigh studied under the tutelage of Dr Jacob Bigelow . During this time, Leigh published a controversial paper on the philosophy of medical science, considered with special reference to Dr Elisha Bartlett 's " Essay on
260-530: The 800 pupils within the ten schools: – "It has been proved in repeated experiment that if a child upon his first learning his letters, is taught the Phonetic Alphabet, and is confined to Phonetic books for the first six to eight months of schooling, he will at the end of the first year's schooling read common print and spell in common spelling better than children will ordinarily do at the end of four or five year's instruction." Bothe's analysis of
286-529: The Chadbourne family founded Berwick College , which Edwin Leigh would later attend. On April 10, 1839, Edwin Leigh married Susan Scollay of Ashburnham, Massachusetts , and they had nine children, with three dying early and five recorded: Notably, Leigh initially experimented with teaching literacy using an interim orthography by teaching his eldest daughter Anna to read using Fonotypy in 1946 when she
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#1732772070962312-429: The English Phonotypic Alphabet being used as a transitional mechanism to improve the teaching of literacy. The letters are as follows (with some approximations to accommodate Unicode) At this stage, long vowels had a cross-bar, and short vowels did not Ɨ /iː/, E /eɪ/, A /ɑː/, Ɵ /ɔː/, Ʉ /oʊ/?, ᗻ (for some fonts ᗼ) /uː/ I /ɪ/, ⵎ /ɛ/, Ʌ /æ/, O /ɒ/, U /ʌ/, ᗯ /ʊ/ (the letter for /ʊ/ was like ⟨Ɯ⟩ but with
338-656: The Necessity of Orthographic Reform, in 1848. Learned societies such as the London Philological Society and education journals such as The Massachusetts Teacher debated the arguments for reform and the utility of the English Phonotypic Alphabet. Unexpectedly, when the English Phonotypic Alphabet was trialled to teach literacy, it was discovered that after learning to read & write, students effortlessly transitioned their literacy skills to traditional English orthography . This also gave purpose to
364-767: The Philosophy of Medical Science". Although this essay won the Boylston Prize, it was criticised. After graduating from Harvard in 1850, Leigh remained and took a position as an assistant to Professor Louis Agassiz , lecturing students in natural history (1850–1851). Leigh then used his newly acquired knowledge to practise medicine as a physician in Somerville, Massachusetts and Townsend, Massachusetts between 1851 and 1854 before again becoming dissatisfied and reverting to his true vocation of teaching. Between 1844 and 1846, Leigh spent two years employed as
390-581: The Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.133 via cp1102 cp1102, Varnish XID 544594894 Upstream caches: cp1102 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 05:34:31 GMT Edwin Leigh As well as pedagogy, Leigh had an eclectic set of interests throughout his life and contributed to progress in fields such as theology, the philosophy of science, medicine and
416-616: The abolition of slavery. On September 10, 1815, Leigh was born in South Berwick, Maine , in the United States. He was the son of Major Thomas Leigh and Nancy Leigh née Baker. His father was a veteran of the War of 1812 and owned and operated the Saw Mills at Quamphegan Landing, which became known as Leigh's Mills. Edwin Leigh had five siblings and was related to the wealthy Chadbourne family through his paternal grandmother, Martha Leigh;
442-463: The course of study for the Syracuse school district measured the improvement from using Phonotypy: - In 1855, before the introduction of the transitional alphabet, the student was expected to finish reading Webb's Second Reader by the end of the third grade. In 1858, the first year in which phonetic texts appeared in the course of study, Webb's Second Reader was entirely completed two-thirds through
468-460: The efficacy of the phonetic method and the need for a more straightforward orthography with the sole objective of teaching literacy. He commenced two decades of work to design Pronouncing Orthography, which was launched in 1864 and then trialled successfully in St Louis, Missouri, where he worked as a teacher. Leigh then spent the next two decades promoting Pronouncing Orthography, which achieved
494-425: The following year, he requested to be dismissed, which was granted on May 22, 1844. Leigh spent nearly a decade studying theology and practising in the priesthood. Later in his life, he would use these ecclesiastical foundations to transliterate the gospels according to Luke and Mark into Pronouncing Orthography so they could be used to teach both literacy and Christianity. Leigh's most important theological work
520-535: The middle stem not so tall as the others, and did not have a serif at the bottom right) Ɯ /juː/ (like Iᗯ), ⅄ /aɪ/ (like ɅI), Ȣ /aʊ/ (like Oᗯ)? Ǝ /ə/, ⵎ /ᵊ/ P B, T D, Є J /tʃ dʒ/, K G F V, Θ Δ /θ ð/, S Z, Σ Σ /ʃ ʒ/, L R, M N, И /ŋ/, Y W H. The ultimate objective of the English Phonotypic Alphabet was to improve literacy levels; as such, to demonstrate its efficacy, it was trialled for teaching literacy in many different settings. It
546-496: The school of medicine, Bowdoin College had a single general course of study for their degree, including the study of classics, history, mathematics, grammar, rhetoric etc. Later Leigh would go on to study theology and medicine. Edwin Leigh initially had the zeal to become a Christian missionary, so after graduating from Bowdoin, he entered Andover Theological Seminary where he graduated in 1838–39. He obtained an appointment from
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#1732772070962572-440: The second grade (four trimesters gained). Dr Edwin Leigh extensively practised using Phonotypy to teach literacy. He became persuaded of its efficacy and a passionate advocate but failed to convince his own St. Louis school district to adopt it. He concluded that Phonotypy was not widely accepted because parents, teachers, and district officials could not understand the orthography themselves. Phonotypy had never been designed as
598-839: Was 4 – 5 years old. This early experience persuaded Leigh of the need for a straightforward teaching orthography , which he invented after two decades of development, called Pronouncing Orthography . Leigh would eventually retire to Stoneleigh Ranch, in Kerr County, Texas, owned by his son, Edward Baker Leigh, where he died on April 9, 1890. Leigh was a school pupil at the Berwick Academy preparatory school in Berwick, Maine , founded by his Chadbourne relatives. He subsequently studied at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine , between 1832 and 1835, when he graduated. Apart from
624-461: Was designed to be the print form extension of Pitman Shorthand , a form of abbreviated phonetic handwriting. It is closely associated with Phonetic Longhand, which is the handwritten, or script, form of Phonotypy. The philosophical case for the English Phonotypic Alphabet was made by Alexander John Ellis , who conducted an extensive study of the problems with English orthography, which he published in his treatise Plea for Phonetic Spelling, or
650-646: Was mainly tried in schools with children but also illiterate inmates of workhouses, reformatories and jails and by missionaries in Africa, China & India. In 1849, its potential was shown when 1,300 Mancunian illiterates were taught to read and write in only a few months. These trials culminated in the adoption of the English Phonotypic Alphabet in two public school districts in the United States: - Waltham, Massachusetts , between 1852 & 1860 and Syracuse, New York , between 1850 & 1866. Both districts used
676-727: Was to come later when in 1881, he published The Sinai and Comparative New Testament , an English translation of Codex Sinaiticus with an in-line comparison to the King James Version of the Bible, the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Alexandrinus . Although, at heart, it was a simple re-arrangement of the Constantin von Tischendorf Testament, Leigh's document allowed theologians to easily compare three of
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