Early childhood educators believe that schooling for young children should focus on developing the "whole child," socially, emotionally, physically, and academically. Teaching pre-reading skills and encouraging children to read are essential steps on the path of literacy development. A narrow and persistent attention to academics is potentially harmful to children as it inhibits their social, emotional, and physical development. Many four- and five-year-olds are not developmentally ready to participate in a heavy academic curriculum in which they are expected to sit and pay attention for long periods of time, and where skills are taught in isolation rather in ways that are meaningful and relevant. In this article, the authors discuss the importance of developing literacy skills in programs for four- and five-year olds, and stress the necessity of doing this in ways that are developmentally and culturally appropriate for young children. They also describe "The Early Literacy Evaluation Guide" that was developed by the Hawai'i Early Literacy Consortium and was written to assist teachers in evaluating their own or commercial literacy programs. "The Early Literacy Evaluation Guide" was adapted from a K-12 decision-making matrix developed by the Commission on Reading of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). (Contains 3 endnotes.)