Reading retention and transfer in TMR students

Twenty-one TMR students at two schools completed 2 years of reading instruction using a whole-word approach. Students were pretested and posttested both years on two word lists; one list was made up of words included in the reading program, the other of words not included. The former list was used to assess word acquisition and retention, the latter to assess transfer. A one-way repeated measures analysis of variance indicated a statistically significant increase in words recognized. By the close of the second year, the average student had completed 100 lessons and had learned 41 words. Students retained most of the words they had learned over the 3-month summer vacation. A separate one-way repeated measures analysis indicated statistically significant transfer to untaught words. The authors concluded that TMR students can profit from reading instruction.