A study was conducted to examine syntactical development in spontaneous written language of selected preschool, kindergarten and first grade children. The two major experimental questions were: (1) Will there be development towards greater complexity in the syntax of spontaneous writing and how should it be described? (2) What transformational linguistic analysis of spontaneous writing at the acquisition and early development stages tell about the ability to express syntactical relationships in writing? Spontaneous written language in response to a stimulus picture was obtained weekly from 5 children each at three grade levels (8 boys and 7 girls, ages 4-7) over a ten week period. Each child was tested individually. A case study approach was used to analyze each written corpus. A battery of tests for background data, letter recognition, letter writing, word writing, oral reading, vocabulary and drawing was administered. Results revealed parallels between acquisition and early development in oral and written language, ability to produce linguistic forms and to express syntactical relationships, and increasing movement towards complexity in spontaneous writing. Each child's written language corpus is included. Appendices contain relevant statistical data. (CLK)