A study examined the concurrent development of reading and writing behaviors in a cross section of preschool and kindergarten children across diverse language and literacy tasks. Subjects, 16 preschool children attending a university laboratory school and 12 kindergarten children from two classrooms in a large suburban school district, were presented with an array of formal and informal language and literacy tasks, including two standardized tests, a previously developed research instrument concerning invented spelling, and two informal tasks. Results indicated several statistically significant relationships between performances on the literacy and language tasks, but the pattern of relatedness was more unified with the kindergarten group and more varied with the preschool group. Findings suggest that even very young children exhibit considerable variety across tasks and from one child to another. (Contains 23 references and 2 data tables.) (RS)