Eight experiments are described in this report. In experiment 1, four and five year olds were presented four verbal discrimination (VD) lists. For three of the lists all correct items were either conceptually, acoustically, or affectively similar. The fourth was a control list. The conceptual list facilitated VD learning. Experiment 2 indicated that recognition memory (RM) by kindergartners for target items was better when those items had been preceded by associates than when they had not. In experiment 3, three and four year olds were given extensive paired-associate (PA) training in which response terms were highly familiar words and stimulus terms were words semantically related to response terms but unfamiliar to the subjects. The feasibility of using an entirely verbal PA task with children was demonstrated. Experiment 4 examined the effects of the categorizability of words to be remembered on free recall (FR) of children three through six. In experiment 5 preschool and young elementary school children were given five FR study-test trials with a nine-word list. Experiment 6 consisted of the collection and compilation of word association data for preschoolers. Experiments 7 and 8 examined the modifiability of memory encoding operations of preschoolers and used training exercises to increase the children's awareness of conceptual relationships. (WR)