Two purposes guided this study: (1) to investigate the effects of modeling on the verbalizations of lower-class, black, preschool children; and (2) to investigate the relationships between the dialect employed by the model and children's language production. As subjects, 72 black, preschool children in lower-class neighborhood day care centers of New York City were randomly assigned to one of six conditions, with each group consisting of six boys and six girls. Models were two dark brown, neuter gender hand puppets representing an adult and a child, while visual stimuli consisted of three pictures--a drum, a clown, and a dog. In the pretest, a visual stimulus was presented to all children who then wrote a story about it. Four modeling conditions varied in either the linguistic style (Black English or standard English) or the relative lengths of the modeling story, while two control groups provided comparative information. Children's pretest and posttest responses were tape-recorded. The major finding revealed that modeling in a shorter sequence, using Black English, caused greater verbal productivity. (JM)