Using the tools of systematic grammar, this case study examined 3- and 4-year-old children's experiences with storytelling and the potential effects of those experiences on the children's future success in learning to read. Subjects were students attending one of two nursery school classes held at a large primary school on the south coast of England. These children came from families experiencing financial, social, and physical problems. Results indicated that: (1) storytelling helped to gain the students' attention; (2) throughout the school year, the children began to move toward more explicit, individual self-expression and away from dependence on shared observations; (3) some children had substantial gains in learning language styles very different from those found in their prior conversational experience; (4) in October, only 21 percent of teacher-child dialogic interactions were initiated by students, but by May, this number had increased to 54 percent; and (5) children experienced many positive gains, in various areas, from learning how to actively construct narratives. (JW)