Until recently, kindergartens were designed to foster a positive attitude toward school and provide a well-rounded development through the use of suitable play, art, and social activities. Unfortunately, many kindergarten programs have begun to rely on inappropriate materials and techniques taken from formal first-grade programs. Such programs reflect a skill-based perspective with activities and tasks hierarchically ordered. Instruction usually means the teacher presents a skill and then the children practice it on materials that are arranged by difficulty of words and sentences. An alternative approach is one that draws on the notion of reading as a thinking and understanding act and learning to read as a constructive, problem-solving process. This means that while children can be given information to learn and practice in a stepwise fashion, they must interpret the ideas and relate them to their own knowledge and experience. Three principles guide these alternative programs: (1) learning to read is supported when a classroom features familiar printed information and interesting literacy activities; (2) learning to read requires the use of diverse materials and a wide variety of tasks that are directly or indirectly related to reading, writing, speaking, and listening; and (3) learning to read is an active process. An eight-page reference list is appended. (HOD)