The reflections and theses on preschool children's literacy development presented in this book are the result of an experimental project carried out in Buenos Aires from 1974 to 1976. Chapter 1 discusses the educational situation in Latin America, traditional methods of reading instruction, contemporary psycholinguistics, the pertinence of Piaget's theory, and general characteristics of the research. Chapter 2 examines formal aspects of the graphic system and their interpretation, and chapter 3, "Reading with Pictures," explores the relationship between print and picture. Chapter 4 deals with reading without pictures and interpreting the parts of a text; chapter 5 discusses reading acts young children witness, including their understanding of oral and silent reading; and chapter 6 considers the evolution of writing, from preschool writing to the writing of school children. Chapter 7 deals with dialect variations, reading, and the ideological content of typical basal readers. The final chapter discusses problems, precautions, pedagogical consequences, historical solutions, and theoretical implications. (EL)