A study was conducted to determine whether voice support helps children learn to read. Voice support involves reading to children while they follow the text, either informally as in bedtime reading, or formally, as in teacher or audiotaped readings of stories in the classroom. Subjects, 64 children just entering school, were unfamiliar with the 12 books used in the 24 instructional sessions. During each session the children had copies of the story, and some listened to an audiotape of the story, while some did not; some were encouraged to read each page while others only looked at the book; some heard up to six readings of a story; some heard only two. Each child had similar exposure time to the texts, even though the number of repetitions varied. Pre-instruction tasks assessed prior reading knowledge. Post-instruction tasks included high frequency word lists, writing vocabulary, and "spot" and oral cloze games. The results indicated that voice support did produce an improvement in children's reading behaviors but only on the instructional materials. The differences failed to appear with unfamiliar books. The improvement in reading may have reflected only the increased memorability of texts provided by the voice support. (HTH)