This paper presents a collection of studies that examine interactions in preschool and school settings around the time of school entry. The studies are loosely organized around five themes: (1) differences between intended and experienced curricula, and intended and experienced patterns of interaction; (2) contingent and responsive nature of successful teaching and its dependence on capturing and recruiting interest, staying one step ahead of the learner, creating joint understanding, guiding the child to make links, and the importance of fully noting the social, affective, and intellectual aspects of the child's understanding; (3) effect of expectations on patterns of interaction and ultimately on learning outcome; (4) specific and characteristic nature of school discourse, its potential for restricting child-adult interactions, and its potential for making explicit though more often leaving implicit the nature, purposes, and principles of the learning to be undertaken; and (5) importance of the similarities or differences between children's previous broadly-defined learning experiences, such as language use, access to resources, and type of support in using resources, and their school performance. The studies suggest a wide range of investigative strategies and foci, including input/output, quantitative monitoring of types or aspects of interaction, action research, ethnographic study, focus on language and meanings, and focus on actions. (SM)