Once you learn to drive a car, you’re better equipped to drive a truck. Knowing how to drive a car might also help you to develop better decision-making skills. That’s because of a phenomenon called “learning transfer”: the application of skills and concepts learned in one context to another. If the disciplines are closely related, like driving a car versus a truck, that’s a “near” transfer, but if the applications are more distant, like driving and decision-making, that’s a “far” transfer.
Learning transfer happens across subjects in school, too. A 2022 working paper, as summarized by my colleague Dr. Amber Northern, examined the Model of Reading Engagement (MORE), a multi-year literacy intervention that integrates reading instruction with science and social studies content. The study found both near transfer effects on reading and far transfer effects on math. Now, a follow-up study from two Harvard researchers builds on these findings by investigating the mechanisms by which MORE leads to improved performance in a distant academic domain like math. Specifically, it tests the extent to which third grade reading skills explain the observed effects on fourth grade math achievement.
The analytic sample consists of 2,073 students across 30 schools participating in a MORE randomized controlled trial, followed from first to fourth grade (2018–22). The intervention was implemented in treatment schools from the spring of first grade through the spring of second grade, while control schools received business-as-usual instruction. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, MORE materials were provided to both groups in third grade, resulting in different levels of overall exposure. Therefore, treatment students experienced a three-year “full spiral” of MORE (first through third grade), while control students received a one-year “partial spiral” (third grade only).
Using test scores from the end of third and fourth grade to assess immediate and long-term outcomes, respectively, the researchers examined whether students who made greater gains in reading were also the ones who later performed better in math. The research team combined multiple measures—including standardized test scores, vocabulary, and comprehension—to capture overall reading ability and compared these to later math performance on end-of-grade tests. They also tested other possible explanations for math gains, examining whether factors related to but distinct from reading skills, such as increased reading engagement or improvements in social-emotional skills, played a role.
Consistent with earlier findings, the MORE intervention had positive effects on both reading (near transfer) and math (far transfer): a 1 standard deviation increase in third grade reading ability corresponds with a roughly 0.56 standard deviation increase in grade four math. About half the math gains attributed to the MORE intervention are associated with stronger reading skills.
Not all reading skills contributed equally. General reading ability and vocabulary showed stronger relationships with math gains, while more narrow skills—such as content-specific comprehension and background knowledge—played a smaller role. Reading engagement and social-emotional skills in third grade did not lead to measurable gains for grade four math outcomes.
Overall, the study highlights the potential power of far transfer, showing that learning gains can ripple across disciplines. It also suggests that the full impact of an intervention cannot be captured by examining only the outcomes it directly targets, though this finding should be interpreted cautiously. A large body of cognitive science, including work by Daniel Willingham, suggests skills are often domain-specific and may not be transferred across disciplines such as reading and math.
At the same time, the findings raise important questions. If reading explains only half of the improvement in math, what accounts for the rest? While far transfer occurs between math and reading, are there other domains where learning transfer is less effective? Further, detailed evidence on the relative contributions of different components of reading instruction would help inform more targeted interventions.
Because the researchers focus only on elementary students, it would also be valuable to examine learning transfer among middle and high schoolers. Future research could explore transfer not only across disciplines, but also across instructional contexts and teachers.
Finally, because control students received one year of the intervention, the contrast between treatment and control groups is less clear than in a typical randomized design, and as a result, the study may underestimate the full impact of sustained exposure to MORE. Still, these results offer strong empirical evidence for transfer effects in education.
SOURCE: Joshua B. Gilbert and James S. Kim, “Mapping the Mechanisms of Interdisciplinary Learning Transfer from Reading to Math Achievement: Evidence from a Large-Scale Randomized Controlled Trial,” Annenberg Institute at Brown University (January 2026).
