Many approaches to reading that are common in schools focus narrowly on the skills and strategies that comprise the technical ability to read. In contrast, attention to reading identities prompts teachers to center children's ideas about what reading is and who they are as readers. In this article, the author draws on his own experiences with children in prekindergarten to examine the various aspects of children that together make them a reader, including how children conceptualize, perform, and experience reading, and how they connect reading to understandings of language and other aspects of their identities. The author describes approaches to learn about and assess children's reading identities that are based on his work in a prekindergarten classroom. These include intentional talk about reading, drawing about reading, observation during play and classroom activities, and family questionnaires. The author then provides guidance on how these assessments can inform classroom practices, and how teachers can account for the role of identities as they plan instruction for and support early reading.