A child's sense of involvement in story and desire to meaningfully experience literature must be sustained and promoted if the problem of "literacy" is to be resolved. Four activities, designed as a series of stages, can enhance the literary experience of children. The first activity is reading to children--exposing them to the language stimulation of verse, prose, unique literary styles, and artistic reflections, providing them with an enthusiastic model of involvement, and personalizing the literary encounter. The second activity motivates involvement by providing an appropriate environment--presenting an exciting introduction to or reading an intriguing excerpt from a story. The third activity is guiding the literary encounter to alert children to character development, different story events, cause and effect relationships, further analysis, and information processing activities (an example of guided reading is used with the story, "Julie of the Wolves"). Ultimately children should formulate their own guide questions and frameworks for analysis. The fourth activity involves promoting a response to the literary experience by asking intellectual-affective questions which require comparative judgment and clarification. Asking which book was most exciting, pleasurable, thoughtful, or memorable, and what makes a book worth reading can help children make decisions about the quality of their encounters so that valued experiences may be sought again. (AEA)