Because vocabulary control in children's reading materials is largely based on vocabulary lists and studies which are now obsolete, new areas of learning are being considered for developing beginning reading materials. Instead of basing vocabulary lists on frequency counts and adult reading materials, the three approaches examined here are concerned with paired-associate learning which begins with the child. According to the concept of learnability, there are individual characteristics within printed words which make them easier or harder to learn than other words. A second approach to learning demonstrates that children's associations are predominantly syntagmatic in contrast to the paradigmatic associations of adults. Another area of learning related to children's vocabulary is the division of words into two categories: those which convey the message information and those which convey information about the structure, i.e., function words. Results of a recent pilot study with 24 6-year-old prereaders indicated that there is no difference in learnability between the two word classes, although previous research had reported a dichotomy existed. A bibliography is included. (DH)