Nellie Dale

Ellen "Nellie" Dale (14 February 1865 – 26 February 1967) was a British school teacher who created one of the earliest books on teaching reading.

The earliest school-based literacy education was started by Dale at Wimbledon High School from 1892 to 1909. Ms Edith Hastings, to whom Dale dedicated her book On the Teaching of English Reading, was headmistress of Wimbledon High School for Girls from 1880 to 1908.

Dale published several books, starting in 1898 with On the Teaching of English Reading (green cover) with J M Dent & Co., London, England. This book taught the alphabetic principle and phonemic awareness. She taught the voiced and unvoiced consonants, vowels and silent letters by using different colors (black, blue, red and yellow, and she had her students step out the syllables. She showed her students how to notice voiced and unvoiced consonants.

Walter Crane published the Readers under the title The Walter Crane Readers in 1899 with J M Dent & Co in London. Dale later moved her books (excluding her first one) to George Philip & Son Limited, London and then called them The Dale Readers.