This paper describes a study which examined kindergarten students' concepts about authorship and how these concepts affected their view of themselves as readers and writers. The teachers' role in helping form students' attitudes was also examined. Thirty-eight children from two kindergarten classrooms and their teachers were interviewed. The teacher in the first classroom characterized her teaching philosophy as traditional, while the teacher in the second classroom characterized her philosophy as developmentally appropriate. Results indicated that the views which the children in each of the two classrooms had of themselves as readers and writers were different. Generally, the children in the first classroom saw writing as copying teacher-given words and sentences, while those in the second classroom saw themselves as authors writing stories. Students in the second classroom, in which theories of emergent literacy were in practice, demonstrated a disposition for learning, reading, and writing, and felt good about what they had learned. Contains 15 references. (HTH)