A study examined whether the more inviting text structure of informational storybooks (compared to an information book) influences comprehension of scientific information. Ninety-six third-grade subjects were drawn from eight classrooms in four elementary schools in a mid-size metropolitan area in the southern United States. Within each class, six students were assigned to a study group and six to a control group. Each group was balanced for gender and ability as identified by the classroom teacher. Students were given pretests prior to having either an information book or an informational storybook concerning space or earth science read to them. Immediately after the reading, and again 6 weeks later, students completed a 10-item posttest. Results indicated that while the study and control groups performed equally well on the pretest of subject matter prior knowledge, students who were read the informational storybook made greater gains in scores on both the posttest and the 6-week test than students who were read the information book. Findings suggest that information embedded in a narrative format may be more memorable than information in a straight expository format. (Three tables and two figures of data are included. (Contains 22 references.) (RS)