Biography of Mrs. Anna Ingham C.M., founder Blended Sound Sight

Beginning her teaching career in Saskatchewan, Canada in the early 1930’s, Mrs. Anna Ingham taught in one-room schoolhouses, usually handling grades one to ten for a number of years. She devised an amazingly successful Language Arts program which she eventually called “Blended Sound-Sight”. After numerous requests from other schools, she was granted a year sabbatical from her school district to write a book on her methods. She published that spring. Since then, her book has seen five additions and editions - the last in 1994. Mrs. Ingham has won many prestigious honours including the Hilroy Scholarship Award and the Founder’s’ Award from the University of Saskatchewan. In 1995 she was granted the nation’s highest civilian award: The Order of Canada for her outstanding contribution to education. Never having really retired, Anna Ingham is ninety years of age yet still conducts seminars throughout the year, assisted by her daughter Shirley George and many other fine teachers.

Mrs. Shirley George

Mrs. Shirley George also has taught many grades, mostly in Edmonton, Alberta. Like her mother, she realized the desperate need for a solid basic program to teach writing and reading to her students. Employing her mother’s approach for over thirty years in the classroom, Mrs. George has also found great success with this unique method. Mrs. George has also been in steady demand at many teachers’ conventions and seminars. While working together as a team, Ingham and George delight their audiences with their humour, their understanding of children and the numerous examples of their children’s achievements.

Dr. James B. Webster, Ph.D

Dr. Webster is a retired professor from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Learning of Mrs. Ingham’s grade one writing program in the late 1940’s, Webster applied its principles and expanded its scope to the higher grades. While teaching in the public schools from grades four to twelve for ten years, Webster succeeded in inspiring students in both academic and creative writing. After reaching for his doctorate in England, Webster taught in various colleges in Africa (seventeen years) and finally for twenty years at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Presently in its second edition and third printing, his book Blended Structure and Style in Compositions has become a vital manual for many successful and happy teachers of writing. Since he has retired, Dr. Webster also conducts seminars for teachers in his writing specialty which forms an integral part of Ingham’s Sound-Sight Program.