What is Transfer?

Large text in blue and green reads: "What is Transfer?" The question is highlighted with a playful design suitable for grade school students.A yellow background displays three labels: "near," "mid," and "far," with each label positioned under vertical lines of varying heights, indicating different distances.

Transfer is the ability to apply knowledge from one topic to another. The “transfer yardstick” can help determine how well students understand passages that differ by various degrees from the original content or context: near, mid, and far.

Two books are displayed for Grade 1 and Grade 2. The Grade 1 book, with a pink cover, is titled "Animal Survival and Arctic Explorers." The Grade 2 book, with a purple cover, is titled "Paleontologists Studying Dinosaur Fossils." There are arrows leading to three assessment boxes labeled "Near Assessment: Paleontologists and the study of Ammonites," "Mid Assessment: Archaeologists and the City of Pompeii," and "Far Assessment:LEARN MORE ABOUT SCHEMASA friendly chameleon is holding a magnifying glass over an open book. Inside the magnifying glass, the word "Transfer" is written in green. The chameleon has a playful expression and spikes along its back.

See the research behind our approach

Students who received three years of MORE lessons, which are embedded within science and social studies time for six weeks per school year, outperformed control students on end-of-grade state standardized tests in both reading comprehension and math.

In fact, the difference in reading for MORE students was equal to more than nine and a half weeks’ worth of literacy learning. And the results persisted. Why? MORE focuses on teaching for transfer.

EXPLORE THE RESEARCH