Four case studies examined the effects of using taped books to teach reading to at-risk elementary school students in rural West Virginia. The study involved two kindergarten students who were identified as at risk for developing reading difficulties and two first-grade students who had been classified with a learning disability. The intervention, which lasted 32 days, consisted of listening to audiotapes or watching videotapes of eight books that typically contained a refrain or sentence repeated throughout the text. Over the course of the study, the order of story presentation was random, with the restriction that the same story was not presented twice in a row or twice during the same school week. Students were randomly assigned to either the audio group, where they listened to an audiotape and turned the pages of their own copy of the book, or the video group, where they watched the story being read without having a copy of the book. Results indicated that both approaches were successful in that all four children improved in their ability to recall story details, familiarity with print and print concepts, motivation and focus on learning activities, and sense of their own reading ability. Books on tape gave these at-risk children opportunities for language-rich literary experiences that increased their interest in reading and improved their self-confidence toward learning to read. (LP)