- Follow-Up Findings
- Structured Abstract
- Introductory Material
- Background and Summary Of Findings
- The Even Start Family Literacy Program
- The Family Literacy Model
- The Even Start Family Literacy Program
- Description of the Evaluation
- Evaluation Findings
- Tables and Figures
- References
- Appendix A: Description of Outcome Measures
- Appendix B: Graphical Displays of Pretest, Posttest, and Follow-up Data
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The Even Start Family Literacy Program
As the Nation's largest and most visible family literacy program, Even Start addresses the basic educational needs of low-income families including parents and their children from birth through age seven by providing a unified program of family literacy services, defined as services that are of sufficient intensity in terms of hours, and of sufficient duration, to make sustainable changes in a family, and that integrate:
- Interactive literacy activities between parents and their children (parent-child activities).
- Training for parents regarding how to be the primary teacher for their children and full partners in the education of their children (parenting education).
- Parent literacy training that leads to economic self sufficiency (adult education).
- An age-appropriate education to prepare children for success in school and life experiences (early childhood education).
Even Start's long-term purpose is to help break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy for low-income families. Local Even Start projects are meant to integrate the components of family literacy and build on services that already exist in their communities. The program has grown steadily over the past decade, both in terms of federal funding as well as the number of projects that are supported with those funds. From a small demonstration program in which $14.8 million was used to fund 76 projects in 1989–1990, Even Start has grown ten-fold. In 2000–2001, $150 million in funding was distributed to 855 projects serving 32,000 families in all 50 states, and funding rose to $250 million in 2001–2002 (the appropriation was approximately $248 million in 2002–2003). Even Start has been reauthorized and amended several times, most recently through the Literacy Involves Families Together (LIFT) Act of 2000 and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The third national evaluation was designed before these reauthorizations, so this report's findings reflect Even Start as it was implemented pre-reauthorization.
