Suggests that spontaneous utterances of first-grade inner-city children in whole-language classrooms in two urban sites reveal five trends in learner perceptions of beginning reading and writing: (1) metacognitive statements reporting learner self-appraisal and self-management; (2) sound/symbol relations; (3) hypotheses about reading; (4) patterns in letters and words; and (5) notions about the interrelatedness of reading and writing. (SR)