The purposes of this study were (1) to investigate the metalinguistic knowledge children have acquired from their environment before formal instruction, and (2) to examine the relationship between evolving writing and reading behavior. Twenty middle-class children ranging in age from 4.1 years to 5.11 years were selected. The Goodman and Cox Preschool Concept of Reading and Preschool Concept of Writing Interviews (1977) were used to assess the subjects' concepts and attitudes about reading and writing. Further information about children's evolving writing behavior was obtained through an informal, unstructured writing session in which the child was given a blank piece of paper and asked to write anything he or she wanted. Information about the child's evolving reading behavior was obtained through the Book Handling Knowledge Interview. Subjects were given a short picture book to read and, during the reading, questions were asked to elicit knowledge of such things as beginning and end of story, front of book, and name of book. Subjects' knowledge of directionality, separation of print from pictures, letters and words, punctuation, and other reading behaviors, were further measured by the Stanford Binet Intelligence Scale. Results indicated that while preschool children may not have fully developed concepts of the linguistic terms used in an instructional setting (such as "letter", "word", and "sentence") and may not be able to indicate word-by-word matching of spoken/written words, they do have a functional concept of the purpose of reading and writing, as well as immature but developing concepts of linguistic terms and the direction of print both on a page and in a book. (Author/MP)