A study examined the ability of 16 children in kindergarten, grade 2, and grade 4 to draw inferences based on the content of a narrative passage and to recognize inferences as derived from, rather than given by, text. An inference task, developed to assess the ability to make and recognize appropriate inferences, consisted of four orally presented narrative passages, four recall questions, and two sets of inference questions. Results indicated that from kindergarten to grade 4, children's ability to make and recognize inferences from texts shows marked improvements. Whether or not this improvement in inferencing ability arises as a result of exposure to the written language remains a question for further study. (Graphs of statistics are appended.) (SRT)