Relationships existing between elements of intelligence, age, and environment and meaningfulness of materials were examined along with the hypothesis that an increase in meaningfulness of materials would cause the mean difference in learning scores for different intelligence levels to first increase, then decrease. In a paired-associate task, three lists of eight CVC trigram pairs of varying meaningfulness ratings were presented 10 times each to 292 subjects. Of these, 55 were college sophomores, 60 were high school seniors, 60 were high school freshmen, 57 were sixth graders, and 60 were third graders. Data collected on each subject included an IQ score, a socioeconomic status rating, and four measures of association on the trigram pairs representing varying degrees of meaningfulness. Results showed that relationships did in fact exist between intelligence and meaningfulness, between age and meaningfulness, and between socioeconomic status and meaningfulness. Mean differences in learning and IQ decreased with increases in meaningfulness, but in differing degrees for different age levels. Implications of these results for beginning reading instruction are discussed and include increased attention to associating tasks with children's experiences, language patterns, and environment. References and tables are included. (MS)