Summary.119 fifth‐ and sixth‐grade children read a 20‐paragraph text, with half of the groups receiving a test immediately after reading. One week after learning, all children were given a delayed test. The tests measured both verbatim and semantic recall of questions seen during the initial reading. Half of the children received instructions to form mental pictures of the text events during learning. The remaining half of each group were merely told to read carefully. Control groups read only text or only text‐related questions. Analysis of the pooled delay scores showed a decided superiority for learners receiving imagery instructions. The instructed children also recalled more semantic than verbatim test items. These data indicate that using image instructions with text material increases the amount of content remembered ov