A teacher, after learning about emergent writing in an inservice teacher education course and noticing various levels of writing in her 16 kindergarten and first-grade children, decided to involve the parents of her students in a similar learning process. A 4-week project involving dialogue journals ensued. Written questioning techniques developed as a means of encouraging parental communication with students. Active participation by parents had positive effects in modeling, parent-teacher-student communications, parental appreciation of student writings, and increased progress in student writings. (Contains nine references and five figures presenting teacher letters to parents, students' writing, and parents' responses.) (RS)