It is known that children tend to imitate violent behaviors they watch in television programs. There have been many attempts at creating theories to explain such a tendency. One is the cognitives theory which sees children as active viewers interpreting and making meaning of what they see on television. The cognitive theorists emphasize that cognitive process, viewing context and their unique schema which is a mix of their personal experiences and their under- standing of television symbols, are key factors to the understanding of how children watch and interpret television messages. 　　This paper uses cognitive theory as the basic framework, and reports the findings of an empirical research that uses television cartoon programs as text, and studies how children interpret violent messages in television programs based on their understanding of story schema and the mediating role of their level of television literacy. It is hoped that the findings would provide a new perspec- tive to research on the effect of television violence programs.