This descriptive, longitudinal study investigated the emergent literacy skills of 45 children 4 and 5 years of age who were enrolled in an enrichment program for the gifted and talented. In two 10-week sessions conducted in subsequent years, children were requested to write a story and then read it aloud. Of central interest were four questions: (1) What forms of writing and reading were used? (2) What is the relationship between the writing systems chosen by a child and the form of the child's rereading? (3) What differences are observed in the writing and rereading of academically able children? (4) What is the effect of task-related variables on the child's writing? Over a 2-year period, 329 stories were collected. Stories were analyzed using Sulzby's (1985) scheme for classifying the forms of writing and rereading from writing used by young children, and reanalyzed using modifications of that scheme. Considerable variability was found in the use of forms of writing and rereading among subjects, both within successive stories by the same child and between children. Higher levels of writing were not always accompanied by apparently higher levels of rereading. Age differences were noted in children's use of writing and rereading systems. More 5-year-olds used specific higher levels of writing and rereading than did 4-year-olds. Requesting children to write everything they could write resulted in more letter-based writing than did the request to write a story. (Author/RH)