Reading and writing are complex skills that are adopted and developed gradually, and nowadays, in modern society, represent some of the most important lifelong activities. The process of learning to read and write starts at the early age, much earlier than the child's formal education. In order to master the skills of reading and writing with ease, a child should first master the so called pre-reading and pre-writing skills. Thus, it is of the utmost importance for a child to be surrounded by spoken and written materials and to be encouraged to adopt pre-reading and pre-writing skills, while only the full development of these skills will ensure that the child adopts the skills of reading and writing with ease. The quality of the social environment influences significantly the development of the early literacy in the kindergarten. In the area of early education, more precisely, early literacy, it is very important to create the possibility for children to see the letters and numbers as something interesting, useful and necessary. The goal of this research is to define a theoretical basis, the development and importance of the early reading and writing at preschool age, to get an insight into the parents' perspective of their children's early literacy (concerning kindergardens in the area of Osijek) and the importance of the development of reading and writing skills, as well as their understanding of the matter. A survey method was used in this research. The sample consisted of 20 randomly chosen parents of the kindergarten children in the area of Osijek.