We review cognitive-linguistic approaches to conveying meaning, sound, and orthographic information across scripts in order to highlight the impact of variability in written and spoken language on learning to read and to write words. With examples of word recognition and word writing from different scripts, including Chinese, Arabic, Persian, and English among others, we highlight 1) characteristics and boundaries of a word and how these sometimes present challenges for reading and spelling, 2) phonological sensitivity, including phonological omissions in print, suprasegmental processing, and "distance" between spoken and written forms, vis-à-vis literacy acquisition at the word level, 3) the importance of specific types of divergent visual-orthographic knowledge for the mastery of different writing systems, and 4) expanding understanding of visual-motor skills and their role in spelling across scripts. All of these aspects of variability in different writing systems should be more broadly integrated as theoretical models and intervention methods of reading or writing are tested across different writing systems.