This study indicates that the way in which stories are presented to children (verbal versus pictorial) makes little or no difference in the children's comprehension or recall of the stories. Ninety-six kindergarten and second grade children either looked at a series of pictures (and were told they formed a story) or listened to the story through a set of earphones. The experimental conditions were: (1) mode of presentation (pictorial vs. verbal text), (2) free recall vs. probed recall and (3) Story 1 vs. Story 2. The children's comprehension of the stories was tested by their answers to questions asking them to draw inferences from the stories. The story content was ordered using the Stein and Glenn story grammar. The main findings were: (1) there were no reliable differences in either free or probed recall between the two modes of presentation; (2) while free recall of the internal responses or reactions (emotions, motives, etc.) of the story actors was higher in the text condition than in the picture condition, there was not a statistically reliable difference on this measure between conditions in probed recall and (3) there were no reliable differences in comprehension. Slightly higher performance was found on recall of detail and manner in which actions occurred in the picture condition. It is suggested that children encode and retrieve similar amounts and kinds of information about stories in either condition, indicating that they share a common "deep structural" representation. An additional study is briefly described which examined the relative coherence of the two stories. Four tables present descriptions of one of the picture stories and its text equivalent and data from the studies. (Author/BH)