The textbook by Graham, Holt-Hale, & Parker (1998) provides cue words for practitioners to use during instructional sessions when teaching children motor skills. Although many teachers have utilized the cue words in this textbook, little research has been conducted to determine the influence of the cues on the learner's motor skill performance. The primary purpose of this study was to determine the influence of verbal cues and modeling on the execution of a motor skill through biomechanical changes in performance. Participants were 15 motorically-delayed kindergarten children (9 females and 6 males). The procedure for this study consisted of a pretest in which the participants were asked to perform three trials of a motor skill (the horizontal jump) after which they were randomly assigned to one of two conditions (cue only and model only). In the verbal cue only condition, participants were asked to listen to four cue word phrases describing the critical components of the skill and then perform three trials of the skill. In the model only condition, participants viewed a videotaped modeled performance of the horizontal jump (no verbal cues provided) and then performed three trials of the motor skill. All subjects were then asked to watch a modeled performance with the audible cue word phrases and perform three trials of the horizontal jump. The participant's videotaped performance was digitized to determine if changes could be noted in kinematic parameters. Specifically, this study focused on the knee angle of the horizontal jump, as one of the cue phrases instructed the children to "bend knees". The results from this preliminary investigation showed a significant difference (F(2,15)=4.221, p<.05) between the participant's pretest scores and their scores from all subsequent test conditions, with the greatest difference noted between the pretest score and the scores for the cue only/model only conditions (mean pre angle=96.03°, mean cue only angle=89.19°, mean model only angle=92.56°, and model/cue angle=90.74°). The results of this study suggest that cue words do influence the biomechanical parameters of the horizontal jump. Further research is necessary to determine the influence of cue words on other biomechanical parameters of motor skill performance. Keyword(s): elementary education, performance, research