Learning to read is a remarkable feat with extraordinary consequences for cognitive and personal development. This learning process involves substantial changes in the function and structure of underlying brain networks. In most western industrialized societies, these changes take place across several years in early and middle childhood, from the onset of formal schooling at around 5 to 7 years of age to 3rd grade of primary school at around 7 to 9 years. Over this period, brain maturation processes co-occur with cognitive development shaped by learning and literacy experience (Dehaene et al. 2015). Longitudinal designs are useful for disambiguating the contribution of maturational changes from those associated with cognitive development and the individual trajectories of reading skills. This knowledge is important for advancing our understanding of the specific neurodevelopmental basis of both typical reading and dyslexia.