An interview with David Olson concerning his current research on the relation between the oral conversational language of preschool children and the formalized language of written texts. (RAE)

Argues that there is more to background experience than general knowledge--that concepts of print, language, story structue, and of reading's usefulness are equally important in developing early reading skills. (FL)

Explores how children become oriented to literacy and how their perceptions of the purpose of print develop as they move toward becoming more fluent users of print. (DF)

Defining emergent as the process of becoming and literacy as the interrelatedness of reading and writing in young children's development, this paper reviews emergent literacy research and relates it to beginning reading and writing instruction. The first section of the paper describes the social and linguistic contexts for literacy, reviewing…