<p>The impact of visual cognition and memory mechanisms on the acquisition of foundational literacy skills have widely been highlighted in the literature. Visual complexity (VC) and frequency of graphemes (FG) vary across orthographies. The alphasyllabary writing system of the Amharic language has a large grapheme size and several particular linguistic and visuo-perceptual features. This study examines the effects of visual complexity and frequency of the Amharic graphemes on grapheme identification and handwriting legibility skills in typically-developing children in order to draw implications for children with dyslexia and dysgraphia. A total of 210, randomly selected students from grade 1 to 3, balanced for gender, participated in the study (age: <i>M</i> = 7.5, <i>SD</i> = 1.2, range = 4.2 years). Data were obtained using an orthographic visual complexity measure and frequency count of graphemes together with grapheme naming and orthographic legibility tests. Results showed that VC and FG significantly predicted grapheme recognition and handwriting legibility in grade 1 and 2. In grade 3, visual complexity (VC) and frequency of graphemes (FG) only had a strong effect on recognizing graphemes, not on handwriting legibility. Handwriting legibility was mainly affected by visual complexity alone, meaning that while the influence of how often graphemes appear (FG) seemed to fade over time, visual complexity (VC) still had a negative impact. The findings have curricular, instructional and therapeutic implications for children with and without reading and writing disabilities.</p>