The reports of research in this monograph reflect 18 years of observation of the behaviors of children learning to read in New Zealand schools. The first section of the monograph urges teachers to look more closely at language behaviors in their classrooms to see how children go about the tasks set before them. The second section reports on studies that investigated the reading behaviors of young children, including such factors as the syntax of reading errors, reading errors and self-correction behavior, the spatial characteristics of the open book, and juncture, pitch, and stress as reading behavior variables. The articles in the third section focus on the oral language and early reading progress of children of culturally diverse backgrounds (Polynesian, Maori, Samoan, Scottish, Pakeha, Melanesian, and so forth), and report on studies that examined such language variables as the development of morphological rules, sentence repetition, and dialects. The articles in the fourth section describe the development and implementation of an early instructional program that undercut a high proportion of reading difficulties in the second year of school, while the articles in the last section explore some of the interrelationships among oral language learning, early reading, and early writing. (HOD)