This study examined transitional knowledge during literacy development, hypothesizing that there are times when the integration of reading and writing knowledges into literacy knowledges is problematic for children because these knowledges are out of synch with one another. Data were gathered from 46 kindergarten pupils, each of whom wrote and read back six stories (during individual writing sessions over a 2-year period) which were analyzed for developmental patterns. Results revealed two mixed-level relationships between the sophistication of children's narrative compositions and their readings of those compositions: "Low level writing/high level reading" and "High level writing/low level reading." The first type represents the relationship of pairing stories composed of letter strings with written-language-like readings while the second represents the relationship of pairing compositions consisting of invented spellings and conventional orthography with readings judged to be oral or written monologues. Findings suggest that while there might not be a clear cut boundary between emergent and conventional literacy, there does seem to be a time in development when a greater than average amount of cognitive reorganization occurs that functions to integrate production and comprehension knowledges and thereby facilitates the advent of conventional literacy. (Three tables of data and five figures containing samples of children's story writing are included; 48 references and 2 appendixes are attached.) (KEH)