This study examines how pre-readers' comprehension of story read-alouds is affected when story goal structure deviates from the canonical event. Forty children (30-59 months) were read stories in which there was either a match or mismatch between story and event goal structure. Children's content comprehension scores for the matched story (M = 5.59, SD = 2.22) were slightly higher (t(38) = 2.26, p = 0.04, d = 0.35) than for the mismatched story (M = 4.79 SD = 2.32). There was not a statistically significant difference (X[superscript 2](1) = 0.004, p = 0.95, f = 0.07) in the proportion of children who inferred the protagonist's goal in each story; however, a significantly smaller proportion of children (X[superscript 2](1) = 17.61, p = 0.0001, f = 0.67) made goal-action inferences when there was a mismatch. Findings suggest that pre-readers benefit when there is compatibility in the goal structures of story and canonical event.