The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine whether young learners of varying reading and spelling performance, identified in Grade 2, can be distinguished retrospectively from kindergarten, based on their growth profiles in cognitive (planning, attention, working memory--WM) and linguistic (phonological--PA and naming speed--RAN) skills. Four groups were formed on the basis of word fluency and spelling criterion measures: (a) poor readers/poor spellers (PR/PS, n = 9), (b) poor readers/good spellers (PR/GS, n = 12), (c) good readers/poor spellers (GR/PS, n = 13) and (d) good readers/good spellers (GR/GS, n = 45) groups. Multilevel modeling (MLM) was used to test the rate and shape of change of the four groups. The effects of verbal and nonverbal ability, age, gender, and SES were controlled among the groups. Results showed that the PR/PS group showed the most pronounced deficits, associated with impairments in both linguistic (PA and RAN) and cognitive (WM) measures. PR/GS was found to be impaired in PA, RAN in kindergarten, and the GR/PS group experienced deficits only in orthographic processing in Grade 1. Also, the average rate of change for PR/PS and PR/GS groups in word reading fluency was negative when the respective growth of GR/PS and GR/GS was positive. The present findings have important implications for determining the role of linguistic and cognitive skills in the dissociation of reading and spelling deficits in consistent orthographies.