During the spring of 1971, a study was made of early reading responses of four, five, and six year olds in a Finnish preschool in order to discover clues to the onset of reading when beginning reading instruction focuses on a phonetic approach and when the language (Finnish) has a highly phonetic regularity. Sixty-two children were tested, interviewed, and observed. Each child was shown a photograph of a word in its natural setting and was asked what it said. The same question was repeated using a drawing representing the photograph, then the printed word symbol in a simple context, and finally the printed word symbol in isolation. Words used in sentences tested the child's recognition of words in total context. Results led to the conclusions that learning to read is as natural as learning to talk and that reading is a natural outgrowth of language development and is not entirely dependent upon the phonetic property of the printed symbol. (JM)