To understand better how readers learn and recall text information, a study examined one prose learning approach--the selective attention strategy (SAS)--in which text elements are processed, given various degrees of attention, and learned according to their perceived importance. Fifty sixth grade students from an inner city school in a large western city were classified as "good" readers--those scoring above the 80th percentile on the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT)--and "poor" readers, who scored below the 40th percentile. Subjects were divided into three groups: subjects in Group 1 were told to remember the color of the items mentioned in the text; Group 2 subjects were told to remember food and drinks; and Group 3 subjects were told to remember the main ideas of the text. The text was shown in segments of two or three sentences on Apple II+ computer monitors. Probes were sounded at intervals throughout the text; when a probe sounded, subjects were told to immediately press the space bar. After completing the passage each student was given a short answer posttest, and was interviewed using the "Awareness Strategies Interview." Results indicated that although both good and poor readers could successfully employ the SAS, good readers learned more information from a text in general and were more competent at the type of selective learning implied by the SAS. Causal analyses, however, reveal that only the good readers showed any indication of using the SAS in a causal fashion. (Four tables are included and 24 references are appended.) (MM)