Introducing Preschool Children to Reading through Parent Involvement is a project funded by a New York State Education Department mini-grant. The major activity of the project is to inform parents of preschool children of the research findings and theories concerning reading to young children. Three newsletters are mailed each year to families identified by school census. Three evening lectures are scheduled, and invitations to speak to parents at various meetings have been accepted. It is the contention of this project that children's inherent language development and the subtleties of the oral-aural act itself make reading aloud to young children the essential ingredient of the beginning reading process. When theoretical questions are asked by parents, the work of psycholinguist Frank Smith is examined for answers. Smith offers two basic assumptions which children must make before they will become readers: children must recognize that print has meaning and that written language is different from speech. The effectiveness of the project will be measured over a period of 5 years by end-of-year testing in first grade. (Author/RH)