A total of 24 four-year-old children were posed with the paired-associate task of learning where 9 different animals lived, using apparatus designed for self instruction through picture matching. In Experiment I, children, who were taught to prompt themselves as needed by referring to a picture book, attained almost perfect scores, significantly more than a group who learned through trial and error without the information source. To reduce errors of over- and under-prompting, an incentive was introduced in Experiment II. One group was differentially reinforced for correct responses only when made on the first attempt without prompting. A second group was reinforced for each correct response regardless of amount of self-prompting or previous errors. The unexpected finding that the indiscriminately reinforced group performed significantly better on the posttest, coupled with the significantly greater variability in book use by the differentially reinforced group, was interpreted as reflecting the heightened anxiety which this risk-taking situation involved for many youngsters. (Author)