At the heart of the enterprise of providing reading materials to new readers is the writer. The writer must write before the new literates can read and must write both effectively and interestingly. Although talent helps, acquired skills play an important part in writing, especially in expository writing. More important, to enable them to produce good expository writing, the new writers must be provided assistance in the process of "message making" or getting the message across to the reader. A proposed model of message-making illustrates that the process of decision making when developing a message in print is neither linear nor one-directional. Major steps in the model are selection of subject or topic; definition of general and specific objectives; content planning in the field; the choice of appropriate literary treatment; development and outlining of the argument of the book; development of subject-matter skills and collaboration with subject-matter specialists; vocabulary research by the writer; writing to be read and to be understood; pretest of material for feedback; and working with the illustrator and the editor. The writer must also keep in mind the problems of adaptations and translations. (YLB)