The purpose of this study was to investigate the inter-relationships between L2 phonological awareness (PA), orthographic awareness (OA), morphological awareness (MA), and word recognition (WR), and to identify the critical determinants of L2 WR and their specific contributions to L2 WR in an EFL environment. Seventy-three Korean fourth-graders voluntarily took part in an assessment of the four fundamental components of literacy: L2 PA, OA, MA, and WR. The results showed that (1) there was a positive association between the three L2 basic reading components and L2 WR, and (2) L2 MA and OA emerged as the primary predictors of L2 WR including unfamiliar and pseudo WR. More specifically, L2 MA-inflection and OA-orthographic choice were identified as the dominant common factors in predicting L2 WR, with MA-inflection exhibiting the strongest explanatory power of L2 WR across unfamiliar and non-real words. These findings are discussed from both theoretical and educational standpoints, addressing the integral role of L2 MA and OA in L2 WR, in conjunction with Phase Model (Ehri, 2005).