In a S-year longitudinal study, middle- to upper-middle-class preschool chi
ldren at high family risk (HR group, N = 67) and low family risk (LR group,
N = 57) for dyslexia (or reading disability, RD), were evaluated yearly fr
om before kindergarten to the end of second grade. Both phonological proces
sing and literacy skills were tested at each of four time points. Consisten
t with the well-known familiarity of RD, 34% of the HR group compared with
67% of the LR group became RD. Participants who became RD showed deficits i
n both implicit and explicit phonological processing skills at all four tim
e points, clearly indicating a broader phonological deficit than is often f
ound at older ages. The predictors of literacy skill did not vary by risk g
roup. Both risk groups underwent a similar developmental shift from letter-
name knowledge to phoneme awareness as the main predictor of later literacy
skill. This shift, however, occurred 2 years later in the HR group. Famili
al risk was continuous rather than discrete because HR children who did not
become RD performed worse than LR non-RD children on some phonological and
literacy measures. Finally, later RD could be predicted with moderate accu
racy at age 5 years, with the strongest predictor being letter-name knowled
ge.