Black preschoolers were studied for the effects of memory enhancing training strategies, socioeconomic status, and the order of free and cued recall on story comprehension. The study also tested the utility of Kintsch's expository text analysis procedures in describing the structure of children's stories and children's oral recall of stories. In one study group, researchers introduced verbal/kinetic strategies (dramatization to solve protagonists' conflicts in stories), while in the other, verbal/symbolic strategies (use of language to describe abstract concepts and summarize the conflict in stories) were used. After training, subjects listened to a story and recalled it in either of two orders: (1) free recall, followed by cued recall through questions; or (2) cued recall followed by free recall. Children's recall was analyzed for fluency, personalized comprehension, and quality of comprehension. The Kintsch Text Analysis Procedure proved useful for identifying semantic and structural elements of the story and the presence of intrusion and inference in recall. Middle class children demonstrated better comprehension than lower class children. Both training strategies helped to improve memory, but verbal/kinetic strategies produced more positive effects than verbal/symbolic strategies. Finally, children showed more coherent story recall in immediate free recall than in recall after questioning. (Author/MJL)