The benefits of drama have been reported extensively in educational research literature; however, few studies provide an in-depth analysis of how drama is used in early childhood classroom instruction for readers who struggle with comprehension. The focus of this study is: How do young children build literary understanding through drama? This seven-month qualitative study took place in a rural elementary school and shows how 10 first-graders who had been identified for the school's reading support program were capable of demonstrating rich understandings of children's literature on multiple levels through drama.