One of the tasks for the British National Curriculum Council has been to identify steps toward proficiency in the English language and, on that basis, issue descriptions of appropriate progress for students at each level and stage. There is a danger that teachers may view these steps as a linear sequence of accomplishments, each to be achieved in turn. Rather, language learning needs to be seen as recursive. Young writers are learning to make their texts explicit to a reader by using, for example, linguistic connectives which give a sense of coherence to the writing. In an analysis of speech and writing samples from five year olds, a greater variety of connectives was found in speech than in writing. However, six year olds in the same study displayed the reverse finding. It was also found that they demonstrated a greater syntactic range when writing was purposeful. Writing samples taken from seven and eight year olds at a suburban primary school in England illustrate a number of different ways in which developing writers take account of a reader. Much of what these young writers are doing in their writing represents embryonic forms of what can be found in the writing of mature authors. The youngsters know how to provide context for their stories, how to build tension and excitement, and how to keep the attention of a reader. They also manipulate devices which make it known that they are aware of the reader and handle changes of time and parallel sequences. Teacher intervention will support these young writers best if it is informed by a deeper understanding of what young writers can do. (MG)