Vietnam veterans enrolled in special reading classes at a community college were the subjects in a comparison of the effects of presenting programed spelling materials by a visual and by an auditory approach. Two groups of 30 students each were randomly selected from 120 veterans enrolled in the special reading classes; during an eight-week period, one group was taught through a visual programed approach while tbe other group used a cassette-recorded version of the same materials. Spelling achievement gain was determined by a pretest-posttest administration of a standardized spelling test, and students were classified as above-average or below-average in intelligence on tbe basis of IQ scores on a standardized intelligence test. Analysis of the results indicated that (1) there was no statistically significant difference between the spelling achievement mean gain scores of the two groups; (2) within the groups, the difference in spelling achievement mean gain scores between students with above-average and with below-average intelligence was not statistically significant; and (3) within each of the intelligence ability groups (above-average and below-average), there was no statistically significant difference in spelling achievement mean gain scores between students taught by the visual and by the auditory approach. (GT)