RECALL AND PRINTED‐WORD RECOGNITION OF RECENTLY‐TAUGHT EMOTIONALLY CHARGED WORDS AS COMPARED TO RECENTLY‐TAUGHT NEUTRAL WORDS

This study is an experimental test of the hypothesis that “emotionally charged” words will result in greater learning as measured by tests of “recall” and “printed‐word recognition” than words that are judged to be emotionally “neutral”.

Ten third‐grade subjects were pre‐tested on “printed‐word recognition” of ten words judged by two clinical psychologists to be “emotionally charged” and similarly pre‐tested on ten words judged to be emotionally “neutral.” After equal exposure to both “neutral” and “emotionally charged” words on four successive teaching days, subjects were post‐tested for “recall” and “printed‐word recognition” five days after the last teaching session.

The results strongly indicate for both the “recall” and “printed‐word recognition” that there is a significantly greater retention of the “emotionally charged” words over the “neutral” words. Despite the fact that a significantly greater number of “neutral” words was recognized in print at the outset of the study, the final performance level for “printed‐word recognition” for both the “emotionally charged” and “neutral” words is identical.

The major implications of the results obtained in this study is that the content of reading materials and the methods for teaching them must be revised so that reading deals with events, ideas, and feelings which are emotionally significant to the child, A personally relevant reading program will not only facilitate the task of learning to read, but will capture and explore the feelings and emotions of each child, as well.