The research of Iris Levin focuses on the development of literacy and socio-cultural factors believed to shape and enhance this progress. In collaboration with colleagues and students she studied the emergence of graphic symbolization among toddlers and preschoolers by analyzing scribbles and early drawing and how preconventional writing is related to drawing. She proposed a model of the development of writing prior to formal schooling and showed how the level of preconventional writing predicts acquisition of reading, spelling and language, later in school. Early writing was also found to be closely related to SES and literacy-related tools at home.

The study of early writing was expanded to include analysis of mothers' mediation of writing to kindergartners and young elementary school children. Findings suggest that mothers who mediate writing at a higher level advance their children's literacy. Storybook reading – a mother-child joint activity believed to be central to promoting language and literacy - was compared to joint writing, showing differential effects in children’s development.

Levin studied how knowing letter names helps in bridging oral and written words, as it does in English, and how it is related to early writing. Recently she has been studying preschoolers' strategies employed in pre-conventional reading. Reading names on cubbies presumably contributes to grasping the alphabetic principle and grapho-phonemic relations.