When 112 fifth- and sixth-graders were observed for their use of one of two possible rehearsal strategies in verbal discrimination learning tasks, the strategy in which the children generated a functional explanation of the word showed a positive influence on simple frequency discriminations. Data analyses also indicate that under this strategy both the children's ability to discriminate frequency and their ability to discriminate their previous rehearsal activity are positively correlated with discrimination learning performance. As a result of these findings, a number of theoretical implications may be seen. (RL)