The use of young children's drawings as aids in assessing their levels of cognitive development and their readiness for reading is recommended in this paper. After showing how drawing development can be examined from a Piagetian point of view, the paper reports on an investigation involving 76 children aged five through eight years, which revealed a highly significant correlation between a child's drawing development and the ability to "conserve" on Piagetian tasks. It also showed a significant difference between the performance levels of children determined to be conservers, transitional conservers, and nonconservers. For each of these three cognitive groups, the paper presents and discusses a sample drawing. It then tells what characteristics of children's drawings to look for in determining their readiness for reading print, suggests ways to plan and conduct drawing activities, and points out how drawing can be useful as an instructional tool in reading and in the development of abilities necessary to such activities as observation, organization, and problem solving. (GT)