Published as ‘Los niños se alfabetizan hablando’. In J.R. García (Ed.) Enseñar a escribir sin prisas… pero con sentido. Sevilla, Spain: Publicaciones M.C.E.P, 2003. CHILDREN TALK THEIR WAY INTO LITERACY Gordon Wells University of California, Santa Cruz In a literate society, everyone needs to read and write. For some, it is essential for their occupation; for some a form of entertainment; for all, reading and writing are necessary for the transactions of everyday life. It is disturbing, therefore, to know that in contemporary societies there are still many adults who are not sufficiently literate to manage these tasks at a level adequate to their needs. Since the teaching of literacy is one of the major goals of schooling, which is compulsory for all children, it seems reasonable to argue that the fault must lie in the way in which literacy is taught. And, indeed, in many of the world's industrialized countries, new curricula and stricter accountability procedures have been introduced in recent years in attempts to overcome this problem. In many cases, however, the policies that are being implemented, rather than remedying the problem, seem likely to further exacerbate it. In many schools today, reading and writing are treated as ends in themselves and children are given tasks to perform that focus on the "mechanics" of literacy as a set of skills to be mastered quite independently of their immediate use for communicating and thinking about issues that are of intrinsic interest and importance to them. In this context, it is therefore important to reemphasize Vygotsky's argument that "teaching should be organized in such a way that reading and writing are necessary for something … Writing should be incorporated into a task that is relevant and necessary for life" (1978, pp.117- 118). In this chapter, therefore, I shall focus first on some of the ways in which reading and writing are embedded in the activities in which many children engage in their lives outside school. Here, my focus will be on the ways in which written texts are interwoven with other modes of meaning making in order to achieve goals that are meaningful to them. Then, in the second part of the chapter, I shall consider how the principles that can be derived from meaning making outside school can be incorporated into the activities through which the school curriculum is enacted. Throughout, I shall draw attention to the intimate and interdependent relationship between written texts and the action and talk in which they are embedded. Reading and Writing in Relation to Other Modes of Meaning Making The characteristic that has enabled humans, as a species, to survive and prosper is the disposition and ability to collaborate in solving the problems they encounter. More than a million years ago, before speech had developed, this ability already existed in the form of