To investigate whether the viewing of printed words influences children's ability to produce plural forms, 120 kindergarten and first grade children were tested individually on 36 items consisting of real words and nonsense syllables that represented three categories: words that required pronouncing the "s" sound as the natural oral plural; words that required pronouncing the "z" sound as the natural oral plural; and words that could be pronounced with "z" or "s," but where "z" was the correct and expected plural. Three groups participated in each grade level; a teaching group, a no-teaching group, and a control group. The results indicated that first grade children made more correct responses and fewer nonplural responses than did the kindergarten children. Among the kindergarten children there was a substantial amount of variation concerning correct responses and nonplural responses, and for some, print seemed to take precedence over their natural language patterns in forming plurals. In addition, some of the kindergarten children read the words with no plural sounds, even though they used plural forms in their oral speech. (MAI)