The author investigated the relationships among Chinese children's early home literacy experiences, children's early literacy acquisition and their later reading performances at school with 2 studies. Study 1 showed that only children's informal home literacy experiences predicted children's oral vocabulary significantly, while only formal home literacy experiences predicted children's Chinese character recognition significantly. Study 2 revealed that only children's Chinese character recognition prior to primary school instruction predicted both the first and second semester's Chinese lesson performance significantly. Children's oral vocabulary and domain of children's home literacy experiences failed to predict children's Chinese lesson performance at school significantly.