A study was conducted to determine if instruction in schematic aspects of narratives would enhance children's knowledge of story constituents and their interrelationships and to assess the effect of instruction in narrative schema on the reading comprehension of average and below average readers. Subjects were 20 fourth grade students who had been identified as having poorly developed concepts of story. Ten of these students served as a control group and received dictionary and word study instruction, and 10 were placed in the experimental group and received intensive instruction in narrative structure. All subjects were administered knowledge of story structure tasks and comprehension measures at two points in the study. The results indicated that instruction in schematic aspects of narratives did enhance development of knowledge of story structure for both average and below average readers, and that the instruction had a strong positive effect on reading comprehension. In addition, the effects were realized quickly and were maintained. The findings suggest that instruction in schematic aspects of narratives could be a powerful form of classroom development of instruction in reading comprehension. (FL)