Background: Using a 1-year longitudinal design, we evaluated the effectiveness of an intervention programme to improve reading attainments among Chinese-as-a-second-language (CSL) learners. Using the simple view of reading as a theoretical framework, the intervention focused on students' orthographic knowledge, word reading and listening comprehension to facilitate reading comprehension. Method: A total of 186 Grade 4 CSL students (mean age = 9.22, SD = 0.56) participated in the study and were grouped into the treatment (N = 96) and control (N = 90) groups. A range of Chinese language and literacy skills were assessed before and after the intervention. Results: The path analysis showed that the intervention significantly affected orthographic knowledge, word reading and listening comprehension directly and reading comprehension indirectly through the three componential skills after controlling for nonverbal reasoning, vocabulary and autoregressors. Conclusions: The findings suggest that orthographic knowledge, word reading and listening comprehension may be promising targets for instructing young CSL learners.