A total of 158 children from seven kindergarten classes participated in a study that compared the effectiveness of a context emphasis approach for teaching sight words with an approach that emphasized the distinctive features of the words presented alone. Within classes, the students were assigned in equal numbers to the treatment conditions: context and distinctive features. For instructional purposes, the children were divided into groups of from four to six members. Each time a group was seen, five words drawn from a list of 40 to be taught were presented using the assigned method. The study was conducted over 23 instructional days with tests to measure delayed recall administered on the tenth day and tests measuring long-term retention given on the twenty-second or twenty-third days. The results showed that a method of instruction that focused the learner's attention on the structural characteristics of the words alone accelerated the rate at which words were learned; however, the ability to read words in text did not appear to be guaranteed by this method. The findings suggested that a distinctive features method of instruction might prove profitable for teaching students who have acquired some reading competency and that a slower rate of sight word acquisition might be justifiable for prereaders if they are acquiring additional skills needed for contextual reading conjunctively. (FL)