This study investigated the relationships between symbolic play, reading readiness, drawing, Piaget's principle of conservation, and age, in 41 preschool children. Subjects were participants in a pre-first-grade summer program; they had had kindergarten experience but no formal reading instruction, and they ranged in age from five years, six months to six years, eleven months. Data were collected through observation of play in a test situation, informal discussion, specific tasks, reading a text which included deliberate discrepancies, and drawing a picture. Statistical correlations were found between the Metropolitan Readiness Test and Sand, an individualized reading situation designed to assess concepts about print; between successful completion of Piagetian tasks and symbolic play level; and between age and symbolic play level. Generally, results lent support to Piaget's theory that play and cognition develop simultaneously. (Author/KS)