Numerous studies investigating development of reading skills in alphabetic languages, such as English, have found a positive association between early reading skill and "phonological awareness," in particular the ability to focus on and manipulate individual sounds or phonemes contained in words.Although there is considerable disagreement amongst researchers regarding the causal nature of this association in children with typical hearing, its existence is relatively widely accepted.The same cannot be said for studies of children with hearing impairment, however, where conflicting findings have been reported.The aim of this research was to investigate whether phonological awareness is associated with early reading development in children with heating impairment, and if so, to examine the developmental nature of that association.Data were collected from a sample of 115 English-speaking five-year-old children (68M, 47F), all of whom were fitted with hearing aids or cochlear implants.The children, who were part of a larger, longitudinal study into the outcomes of Australian children with hearing impairment, completed standardised assessments of reading, phonological awareness, receptive vocabulary, mathematical ability, and nonverbal cognitive ability.Preliminary analyses revealed strong associations between reading and phonological awareness tasks, even after removing the variance associated with degree of hearing loss, maternal education levels, receptive vocabulary, and nonverbal cognitive ability.Multiple regression analyses indicated further that phonological awareness can predict early levels of letter-sound knowledge, and that both of these variables make a significant, independent contribution to childrens developing ability to read single words aloud.