A study was conducted to examine children's ability to deal with a particular form of figurative language, the simile, and the changes occurring in this ability as a result of regular, planned exposure to the form. Before and after an eight-week reading tutorial program, 17 children in the experimental group and 10 children in the control group completed a 60-item test of similes. During the tutorial period, the experimental group received practice in using similes. The items on the test were 20 multiple choice, 20 similes that the children had to judge as being "silly" or "not silly," and 20 similes that the children had to complete. Differences in pretest and posttest performance were analyzed separately for the three portions of the test. The analysis showed no significant differences for any of the subtests for the control group. In the experimental group, (1) the differences in pretest and posttest scores on the multiple choice portion were not significant but were in the expected direction; (2) significant differences appeared for decisions about "silly" and "not silly" similes; and (3) significant differences were found for the simile-completion task, the most demanding of the three tasks. (RL)