A study was undertaken to determine which types of verbal humor are preferred by children and to discover how well adults can predict what children will perceive as humorous. Fifteen adults (education students, parents, and teachers) were asked to rate 25 jokes on a four point scale ranging from not funny at all and not very funny to kind of funny and very funny. The 30 fifth grade students who participated in the study were volunteers from two elementary schools in Racine County, Wisconsin. The jokes, which were selected from five popular children's joke books, represented four types of humor--incongruity, novelty, tendentious, and pun or word play. A fifth category, non-humorous, was also included. The fifth graders were directed to rate each joke on its own merits. At the same time, the adult control group was asked to rate the jokes the way they thought a fifth grader would rate them. Findings indicated that fifth graders and adults are more alike than different in their appreciation of humor, that appreciation of verbal humor is highly individual, and that adults tend to feel that fifth graders will find things funnier than they actually do. The implication for curriculum developers who wish to use humor in instruction is that they should pretest materials with a target audience. (DB)