This study was designed to address two issues: "At what age do children spontaneously use a cumulative rehearsal strategy?" and "What effect does the use of the strategy have on their performance?" The subjects, 28 children at each of five grade levels (nursery, kindergarten, first, third, and fifth), were tested in a serial-position recall task. Stimuli were pictures of common objects and animals whose labels were one or two syllables in length. Following testing, the children were asked to report the memory strategy they had used. The assumption was made that children who were using a cumulative rehearsal strategy would perform better on series of one-syllable items than on series of two-syllable items. As predicted, nursery, kindergarten, and first grade subjects correctly recalled as many two-syllable as one-syllable items. In contrast, third and fifth graders recalled significantly more one-syllable than two-syllable items. The results indicated that young children do not spontaneously use a cumulative rehearsal strategy until after first grade and that the use of rehearsal did not facilitate overall performance of the rehearsers relative to the nonrehearsers at any grade level. (Author/WR)