A study investigated the relationships between the beliefs which parents hold about literacy learning and their children's early literacy knowledge and perceptions of learning to read and write. Sixteen 3- and 4-year-olds who attended the University of British Columbia Child Study Center completed child literacy and literacy perception tests, while their parents completed parent perception instruments and interviews. Some parents held views consistent with emergent literacy (children's own socialization into literacy), while others held more traditional views (centered on reading and writing alone). On the basis of their parents' scores, the children were divided into an emergent literacy group or a traditional group. The traditional group scored higher on measures of emergent literacy knowledge and perceptions of themselves as readers than did the emergent literacy group. Although the results suggest that there is a relationship between parents' perceptions of literacy learning and those which their children are developing, there was a weak relationship between parents' perceptions of literacy learning and their children's emerging literacy knowledge. The findings suggest that children develop perceptions of literacy consistent with those of their parents before they begin literacy programs in school. (Contains 29 references.) (MDM)