This report provides an overview of how the federally funded, state-administered adult education program under the Adult Education Act, as amended by the National Literacy Act, expanded programs and services to eligible parents and their children through family literacy programs in program year 1993-94. Some programming efforts include unified…

Teachers at an elementary school in a working class neighborhood outside Houston, Texas, invited children and their parents to attend 10 Parent-Child Literacy Workshops held on Saturday mornings in spring 1994. Spanish and English speaking parents, together with their children, began each Saturday session by listening to their child read in the…

The Even Start Family Literacy Program, in its fourth year of operation, provides a literacy environment based on the Family Intergenerational-Interaction Literacy Model (FILM) in the southwest area of Oklahoma City. The FILM model is designed to provide a family literacy education program for parents, extended family, and their preschool children…

The concept of family literacy is firmly rooted in a substantial research base from several disciplines: adult literacy, emergent literacy, child development, and systems analysis. Research from these disciplines was reviewed to determine the benefits of family literacy. The results show that family literacy programs do work and that at least four…

This report examines critical issues that rural educators face in establishing preschool programs. Even Start is a federal program designed to meet the educational needs of preschool children who have under-educated parents. In addition to participating in their child's education, the program requires parents to enroll in educational or vocational…

The New Jersey Council on Adult Education and Literacy was created in response to the literacy crisis. The council reached consensus that learning must be a lifelong process, families were teachers, and the workplace was also an educational arena. It established priorities and recommendations in three areas: family literacy, workplace literacy,…

This document, prepared in English for a conference in Japan on family education in the era of decreasing births, presents the conference agenda, profiles of contributors, and summaries or outlines of the papers to be delivered. The aim of the conference was to exchange research results from different countries and from interdisciplinary…

Even Start programs integrate early childhood education, adult literacy or basic education, parenting education and support, and parent and child time together to help break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy. This report describes the Even Start program in Colorado, including evaluation questions and methods. The report also presents evaluation…

Seven model family literacy programs in Illinois were monitored for one year to determine successful program components and characteristics and to assist local programs in developing and implementing practical evaluation systems. Six were networking programs each of which involved several agencies, and one program was designed on a center-based…

The first-year report of the El Paso (Texas) Family Literacy for Parents of Preschoolers program describes the program and evaluates its progress toward stated objectives. The introductory section addresses the following topics: demographic and literacy characteristics of the community; the needs assessment; project design; and objectives for…

Reflecting a holistic approach by introducing many sides of an issue, this anthology of 16 journal articles and conference papers dating from 1985 to 1990 represents a selection of the best research and practice concerning the intersections of adult literacies with elementary and secondary education. The papers and articles are divided among four…

This handbook presents annotated "snapshots" of 10 innovative family literacy programs, almost all of which were begun by an individual with a vision of a new way to solve a demanding educational problem. Profiles depict, in terms of background, characteristics, evidence of success, and advice to policymakers and practitioners, the: (1)…

This report explains why reading story books to young children (an activity assumed to help in the acquisition of literacy, although there is no unambiguous evidence in support of this assumption) is likely to be important and reviews the evidence about the role it might play in literacy development. The first section of the report examines…

A summary of the research on adult literacy indicated factors which make an effective program: recruitment of students centered on personal contacts, individual intake conferences, and sensitive and compassionate teachers with high morale about the program. A summary of the research in preschool literacy programs stressed that factors associated…

Describes inadequate home literacy experiences of three children, noting that the home expects the school to educate the child and the school expects certain prerequisites of the home, but neither is aware of the other's expectations. Exhorts schools and teachers to communicate better the parents' role in early literacy education. (HTH)