Designed to identify promising methods of teaching library reference skills to elementary school students, this study included an extensive search of the literature and a pilot experiment to test the effectiveness of the methods identified. Testing materials, a transparency lecture series, and a self-paced instructional module with cassette tape were developed to meet the objective of teaching heterogenously-grouped fifth and sixth grade students how to use an almanac. Following a pretest, the skill was taught by lecture to the control group and by self-paced instruction to the experimental group. Post-test scores were compared statistically. Each method had distinct advantages for certain types of students, but neither was significantly better than the other. The report presents hypotheses, assumptions, and definitions; explains the methods of data collection; and analyzes and interprets the data. Appendices include testing materials, instructional materials, and frequency distributions of scores. A bibliography lists 31 sources. (Author/FM)