Kindergartners and college students were taught novel words to the pictures by either one of four teaching strategies and then probed how the subjects interpreted the novel words. Adults interpreted the novel words as the superordinate names more often and as the basic-level names less often than children: By labeling the pictures' names, the subjects who interpreted the novel words as the basic-level names increased both for children and adults. By adding the inclusion phrase of "a kind of" to the statements, the subjects who interpreted the novel words as the superordinate names increased and those who interpreted the novel words as the basic-level names decreased for adults but there were no changes for children. The findings were explained as showing that there were interactive effects of the teaching strategies and the subjects' existing knowledges for basic-level and superordinate concepts on interpretation of the novel words.