Children's mastery of reading skills would be facilitated if reading programs capitalized on children's already-developed oral language competence. Barriers against "reading for meaning" exist when the cues used for predicting in oral language are not present in the written language which confronts children; yet anaylses of four reading series commonly used in Australia show that there is a great difference between the language they use and the language used by 5 1/2-year-old children. The Mount Gravatt Developmental Language Reading Program has been developed to help children move from developing oral language behavior to developing competence in written language. Language samples collected from children 2 1/2 years to 6 l/2 years and analyzed through a computer concordance program have yielded information about "signaling sequences" (which signal syntactically and semantically what will follow) and other elements characteristic of children's speech. The program is built around the core "signaling sequences" appropriate for each grade level, combined with meaningful "content sequences." Children first use the sequences in oral language and then transfer meaning to the written form through the use of word cards and reading books. Word attack skills are taught once children have learned to decode for themselves. (GW)