The goal of this longitudinal study was to examine which skills in early literacy determine the development of word recognition, reading comprehension, and spelling in the 2nd grade of the elementary school. A cohort of pupils was followed and tested during the 2nd year of kindergarten and the beginning of the 1st and 2nd grade. It appeared that mainly 2 skills determined the development of word recognition: rapid naming of letters and knowledge of letters. Reading comprehension was predicted to a large extent by vocabulary, rapid naming of letters, letter knowledge, and phonemic awareness. The skills that determined the development of spelling were rapid naming of numbers and letter knowledge.