Twenty children between six and nine years of age and of average or above average intelligence were used in a study to determine whether methods that restrict pupil participation to visual attention or oral response are of more or less value in attempts to recognize words than methods that involve activity with the hands, such as tracing or typing. Forty words were chosen at random from among those words occurring less than once per thousand running words. Ten of the words were taught by each of four different methods. As each word was shown to the pupil and named by the teacher, the pupil repeated the word and attempted to learn it by either oral spelling, phonics, typing, or tracing. The order of methods and the words taught by each method were randomly determined for each subject. No statistically significant differences were found across teaching methods, suggesting that any method that calls the pupil's attention to the word can be used successfully. (Author/RL)