In a 3-year longitudinal study, we examined the relationships between oral languagedevelopment, early training and reading acquisition on word-identification and readingcomprehension tests administered to a sample of 687 French children. Hierarchical linear models showed that both phonological awareness and oral comprehension at the age of 4 years were relevant to reading acquisition 2 years later. These two broad skills explained separate parts of the variance on both outcome measures, while revealing opposite effects: phonological skills explained more variance for alphabetic reading skills and oral comprehension explained more variance for reading comprehension. We also assessed the effects of two preschool training programmes focusing on either phonological awareness or comprehension skills. The results showed that phonological awareness training had a positive effect on alphabetic scores, and comprehension training had a positive effect on reading comprehension. These results provide insight into early oral instruction and contribute to the theoretical debate about the linguistic predictors of literacy acquisition.