Recent functional neuroimaging studies are generating novel insights into our knowledge of skilled and disturbed reading. In neurologically normal subjects, a double dissociation in neural activation in response to reading words and pseudowords has been revealed that corresponds to that observed in the comparison of semantic and phonological tasks. In patients with acquired dyslexia, functional imaging is demonstrating re-organisation within the reading system; in developmental dyslexia, functional imaging is being used to identify the impact of rehabilitation. Together, these findings have implications for cognitive models of reading that have previously relied on input from behavioural data.