Based on the hypothesis that teachers' naturally occurring presentations of storyreading have an effect on children's literacy learning, a study examined whether teachers can be trained to provide a structure for listening to stories and whether this type of presentation would result in significant gains in children's story understanding. Five kindergarten teachers from urban and suburban school districts in Eastern Central Illinois participated in the study. Experimental and control group selection for morning or afternoon time slots were randomly assigned. During the first week the teachers were observed daily as they read stories to each of their classes and on the fifth day were videotaped as they read "At Mary Bloom's." For the remaining three weeks, the teachers continued to read stories daily to both groups using the checklists for preparation and record keeping which they developed in individual inservice sessions with the investigator. For the duration of the study the teachers were videotaped at the end of each week in order to document their progress. Twelve preselected children were individually interviewed on recall, ability to answer probe questions, and word reading ability. Evidence gathered revealed that children's story understanding can be enhanced by storyreading procedures which draw on the children's own experiences and highlight similar experiences among the story characters. Focusing on the story grammar elements is also a successful technique. It appeared that children's story understanding can best be measured by the recall task, which includes propositions provided in children's answers to probe questions as well. (Eight tables of data are included and 34 references are attached.) (MG)