This collection of papers focuses on the relation between spoken and written language processing. The comparative approach to speech and reading concerns new approaches to the development of speech and reading, the existence of non-conventional input modalities like braille reading and lip-reading, and the study of populations with specific disorders in the abilities implicated in normal speaking and reading.; Papers discuss the reading process in non-alphabetical orthographies, the specifics of the reading acquisition problem in logographic or mixed writing systems like Chinese and Japanese, and its relation to underlying speech representations. The role of phonological processes in different modalities and writing systems and at different stages in the reading of the acquisition process is a central concern of all chapters.