Researchers studying emerging literacy have begun building a theory of literacy development that links the processes of reading and writing. Their findings suggest that a child's emerging literacy is based on three factors: a functional expectation for print to make logical sense; an expectation of how language operates in alternate contexts; and a growing control of orthography, wordness, directionality, grapheme-phoneme correspondences, and syntax. Findings also indicate that preschool children are aware that the purpose of language is to convey meaning and that the function of reading and writing is to generate meaning. Research further indicates that young readers and writers will encounter several distinctive types of language as they begin to explore the world of print: language can be oral or written, situation-dependent or context-dependent, phrased in elaborative or restricted code styles, text or nontext. Additional findings suggest that written language (like oral language) is learned, that outcomes of one language encounter become data for predictions in subsequent encounters, and that form follows meaning as children build their growing stock of literacy knowledge. Of importance to teachers are literacy studies indicating that young children attend initially to the meaning function of language and secondarily to formal aspects. (Tentative implications for teachers are briefly discussed.) (RH)