The purpose of this study was to determine if third-grade students could learn vocabulary incidentally through silent reading and by listening to stories read aloud as well as which method would produce the greater gain. Students listened to and read silently a total of 16 stories over the course of 8 weeks. Pretest and posttest scores on multiple choice vocabulary tests were compared to see if an increase in vocabulary occurred. Results indicated that students learned a significant amount of vocabulary through both methods, although a much greater gain was seen through listening to stories read aloud. (Contains 53 references, 8 tables, and a figure of data. Appendix contains data and sample questions from pretests and posttests.) (Author/RS)