The synthesis of Western and Soviet views of memory-related performance is given. Based on this synthesis, it was hypothesized that middle childhood-aged students would comprehend better with involuntary (meaning-based) strategies due to the importance of a semantic focus while adolescent-aged students would comprehend well with voluntary (memory-oriented) strategies based on their ability to use deliberate memory strategies. Two experiments investigated these hypotheses by comparing the effects of inducing involuntary and voluntary processing strategies during reading of narrative texts. Fifth, seventh, and ninth grade students served as subjects. Experiment 1 assessed the effects of the two strategies on factual comprehension, free recall, structural events of the story recalled, and the amount of elaboration and reconstruction in recall protocols. Experiment 2, using a different story, examined the relationship between voluntary and involuntary strategies on free recall and story event structure. In addition, this second experiment included a self-report questionnaire about the types of strategies used while reading. Both experiments demonstrated that older children in the voluntary memory treatment group were significantly better than younger children in the voluntary group on factual comprehension, delayed free recall, and number of story events represented in recall. The experiments also revealed that instructions inducing involuntary remembering of text produced significantly better performance than voluntary remembering for younger students on structural events in recall, free recall and factual comprehension (Experiment 2 only), and elaboration (Experiment 1 only). The results are discussed in relationship to memory development, reading comprehension, and Soviet developmental theory.