The effectiveness of verbal strategies on children's performance of tasks requiring persistence was investigated among 36 male and female preschool children ranging in age from 4 years to 5 years, 5 months. Two tasks designed to measure persistence ability were sequentially presented to the children: one task required the child to drop wooden pegs, one at a time, into a large jar. The other task required the child to find and mark circles in an array of geometric figures. The tasks were performed under three different conditions: task-relevant self-instruction, task-irrelevant instruction, or no-instruction. In the task-relevant self-instruction condition children were asked to verbalize statements reflecting the task requirements. Children in the task-irrelevant condition were asked to generate statements about things they found pleasant to do. In the no-instruction condition, children were told only how to perform the tasks. It was hypothesized that task-irrelevant verbal plans would be effective in improving children's performance on both tasks. Results are discussed. (RH)