Behavioral testing provides a detailed characterization of the cognitive difficulties associated with reading disability (RD); difficulty at the level of assembling the phonological code from print forms a core deficit. Our research combines neuroimaging techniques (fMRI) with intensive behavioral testing in order to explore the functional organization of the brain for language and reading in RD and nonimpaired cohorts. The results from a series of experiments examining language performance with combined behavioral and neuroimaging approaches are discussed. In samples of both adults and children, RD readers demonstrate anomalous activation patterns at both dorsal and ventral posterior regions in the left hemisphere during tasks that make explicit demands on phonological assembly, along with, what appears to be, a compensatory reliance on frontal lobe sites and right hemisphere posterior regions. In a large study of children at different ages and reading levels brain/behavior analyses revealed that the development of reading fluency is strongly associated with the development of the left hemisphere ventral reading system. A neuro-developmental model is proposed and relevant new findings are discussed. Finally, a recently completed intervention study examined the influence of intensive phonological remediation on the development of the LH posterior reading system. Results from this experiment and several related intervention studies are discussed.