This study was designed to examine the ability of 256 above-average sixth-grade pupils to use six categories of verbal context clues in listening and reading. The extent to which success in determining deleted words was associated with the word form class membership of deleted words was also examined. A hierarchy of difficulty was established for the clue categories: (1) definitions or descriptions--77% success, (2) words connected or in series--72%, (3) direct referrals--64%, (4) modifying phrases or clauses--63%, (5) familiar expressions--60%, and (6) comparisons or contrasts--57%. The word form class hierarchy of difficulty was also established: (1) verbs--69%, (2) function words--66%, (3) nouns--66%, (4) adjectives--63%, (5) adverbs--52%. Some results indicated that (1) females achieved better than males in four context clue categories and in four word form classes, (2) the visual mode, as opposed to the oral, was favored in three categories and for word form class-function word, (3) the ability to use context clues was related to the reading levels of the subjects, and (4) the ability to determine deleted words belonging to form classes was related to reading levels also. (Author/LH)