A small-group procedure for teaching consonant sounds was tested in two studies with rural kindergarten and first-grade students whose teachers had been trained to use the procedure by means of a videotape model and a live demonstration. In the first study, done at the end of the 1974-1975 school year, the kindergarten and first-grade participants knew about three-fourths of the sounds on a four-month follow-up test. In the second, better-controlled study, made at the beginning of the next school year, the kindergarten participants knew none of the sounds prior to the instructional phase of the study. On tests given immediately after training on each set of letters, they knew 80% of the sounds. On a follow-up test seven weeks later, they remembered about half of the sounds. Providing a tangible reinforcer for all-correct responses in a training session produced no differences in learning. Lower performance on follow up in the second study, compared to the first study, was attributed to the younger age of the participants. (Author/JM)