School-age language outcomes for children in a longitudinal, randomized controlled study of foster care were examined. Even though children had different placement status at 8 years, children originally placed in Romanian foster care had higher sentence repetition accuracy and longer sentences at 8 years than children who originally lived in severely depriving institutional care. A larger number of foster children also showed written word identification ability. Children placed in foster care by 25 months had significant advantages in nonword repetition and word identification than children placed later. Children placed by 15 months performed equivalently to typical community peers on these measures. Children’s expressive language at 42 months was correlated with their 8-year sentence repetition, nonword repetition, and word identification. The results speak to the continuing adverse effects of early poor institutional care on later language development and to the key importance of age of placement in a more optimal environment.