The paper investigates the opinion of parents and educators on the importance of initial literacy in preschool age. Since the parent-educator relationship is primary for preschool education, we believe that researching the correlation of opinions about this importance is relevant for initial literacy in preschool age. Reading and writing are language skills inherent in man. Human cognition of the world and the possibility of further professional and personal progress rest on these skills. Today, a multidisciplinary approach to the speech-language process is adopted, which develops under the influence of innate knowledge, cognitive abilities and environment. Reading and writing are language skills that find their beginnings in the primary abilities of listening and speaking. The path of speech and language development of a child, and the development of phonological and phonemic awareness are the pre-skills on which the initial literacy in preschool age is based. The ultimate goal of teaching reading is to read out of love and create passionate, motivated readers. The aim of the research is to examine the opinion of parents and educators on the importance of developing pre-reading skills in preschool age. The research problems examined the opinions of parents on the need to learn to read and write before attending the first grade, given their education and the number of children in the family already attending school, and the opinion of educators on the same problem, but also the need for activities related to developing pre-reading skills before going to school. The research included a sample of N = 119 parents of children of kindergarten age and N = 203 educators from the territory of the Republic of Croatia. The results did not show a positive correlation between parents' education and expectations that children learn to read and write before school, however, with the increase in the number of children in the family already going to school, the perception of the importance of reading and writing capital letters before starting the first grade grows. Educators believe that it is not necessary to learn to read and write before starting the first grade, but they believe that all activities and exercises for the development of phonological awareness are important and should be carried out before starting school. Such considerations have been confirmed in the literature dealing with the problems and doubts of whether a child should be able to read and write before going to school. The importance of the right approach to teaching reading, which will not cause resistance, repulsion and loss of motivation in the child, is emphasized.