An extension of a longitudinal study investigated the long- term effects of word-reading strategies on various language and literacy skills in primary school students. Year 3 and Year 4 students, a year previously classified as high on both nonword identification and irregular word recognition tasks differentially exemplifying decoding and wholistic word- reading strategies, continue to perform at a high level in reading words. Students classified as correspondingly low on both word-reading strategies continue to perform at a relatively low level. Students who had previously demonstrated an over-reliance on a decoding approach to word- reading, designated 'Phoenicians' after Baron and Strawson (1976), continue to show evidence of this strategic approach to reading; however, their sight-word abilities have been developed over the ensuring period, evidencing an improvement in their language skills. In contrast are students who had previously demonstrated an over-reliance on a whole-word approach to word-reading, designated ' Chinese'; they appear to have lost their relative advantage for tasks requiring this strategic approach. A follow up comparison of reading strategy groups was made on tasks comparable to those previously used in the original investigation of these students, with particular emphasis on the Chinese/Phoenician distinction. Chinese and Phoenician groups continued to show no difference in phonemic awareness; however, listening and reading comprehension and reading rate, measures which once differentiated the two groups, no longer demonstrated Chinese/Phoenician differences. Language skills not before assessed in this group of students relate to spelling. While spelling accuracy does not show differences between the Chinese and Phoenician groups, the Chinese/Phoenician distinction does become evident in analyses of errors both in a spelling test and in the students' written stories. Phoenicians rely on a phoneme- grapheme conversion, while there is some evidence that the Chinese are likely to rely on a nonphonemic strategy. The present findings argue against the idea that word-reading strategies reflect a generalised language deficit. Rather, there is support for the idea of strategy differences which are specific to word identification.