Discusses research and instances of children learning to read and or write in the home without formal instruction, tracing the development of such natural literacy. Argues that literacy is primarily a social process, involving both teaching and learning. (HTH)

Critical lessons that share a transactional view of early literacy development are synthesized. A transactional view of reading and writing means that literacy as a meaning construction process, and that within a given literacy event, both the text and the reader are changed.

Discusses research on home literacy environments, the values of reading aloud, independent reading, literature and writing, and literature in the language arts curriculum. (RS)

Suggests that reading and writing are not only language competencies displayed in literacy or literature but that they are the sites for analysis in emergent literacies. (DF)