This overview aims to probe the specific relationship between reading, linguistic phonological skills, and acoustic rhythm perception through a systematical review of reading development in Mandarin Chinesespeaking children. Our argument builds upon the amplitude envelope onset hypothesis that sensitivity to acoustic rhythm is crucial for literacy based on a variety of cross-linguistic findings. Recent data in Chinese, a non-alphabetic language, also support our assumption, suggesting universal auditory mechanisms underpin the phonological awareness and phonological decoding found in developing children across languages.