A study was undertaken to explore how five-year-old children approach becoming literate. Interviews consisting of eight core questions were conducted with each of 20 kindergarten children. The questions dealt with children's concepts about reading and writing, and about the purposes children establish for writing. Accompanying each set of questions were four pictures depicting people in various reading and writing situations. Following the interviews, the children were asked to complete a writing sample on a topic of their choice. The writing samples and interview data seemed to indicate that children may possess a certain tacit awareness of how written language operates. Their writing samples exhibited a linguistic awareness beyond their abilities to discuss it in any abstract sense or through metalinguistic explanations. The content of the writing samples and interview responses indicated that reasons for writing are far more definite than reasons for reading. In addition, the children identified pictures to be of great significance when reading books. This suggests that beginning reading materials that contain illustrations accompanied by predictable text will make sense to the young reader and that such texts used with an early writing program in which children can experiment with print in a meaningful context could provide children with ample opportunities to learn about language in print. (FL)