Despite its supposed importance, children's emergent interest in literacy has been seldom studied. As a result, no easy-to-use and psychometrically sound measure of children's emergent interest in literacy exists. This study made an initial attempt at validating such a measure. On three separate occasions, 24 parents and their 2- to 3-year-old children completed the Brief Reading Interest Scale (BRISC), a measure of preschool children's interest in reading. In addition, parents reported how often their child asked to be read to at home, and they filled out reading logs to record how well their child's interest was maintained when read to at home. Finally, parents were videotaped in the lab reading picture books with their child. The reliability of the BRISC, as well as its ability to predict the other measures of child interest in reading, were examined. BRISC scores at the initial visit correlated .78 with BRISC scores collected 1 week later and .71 with BRISC scores that were collected 4 weeks after the initial visit. BRISC scores correlated -.23 with videotaped interest, .45 with parent reading logs, and -.49 with parents' report of how often their child asked to be read to. All correlations were in the expected direction as a lower score on the BRISC indicated more interest in shared reading. While the validity of the BRISC needs improvement, it appeared to have potential as a cost-effective measure of young children's interest in shared reading that might facilitate research on the influences and effects of interest. (Author/EV)