Noting the close relationship among reading, writing, and oral language documented by research, this paper considers studies of early writing development in the context of emergent literacy rather than in the context of work on writing processes and their development. Following a brief review of early studies of emergent literacy that includes analyses of both written products and literacy contexts, the paper examines in detail some recent studies within a conceptual framework that consists of three views of writing: writing as language, writing growth and development, and writing variation in context. From the significant amount of convergence in the findings of the studies, the paper concludes that what researchers are learning is not only an interesting picture of children's early writing development, but a valid one. (FL)