Since 1999, the Read to the Children (RTC) program has allowed offenders in Colorado's state prisons to send young family members a book accompanied by a recording of the offender reading it. RTC is a collaboration between the Colorado State Library and the Colorado Department of Corrections. In the past year, around 1,900 offenders and 3,200…

As obtaining education funding becomes increasingly competitive, family literacy programs must communicate their message of success to receive public and private funding and support. A critical component of educational excellence is parental engagement, but how do communities and schools effectively implement parent engagement and family literacy,…

The purpose of this study was to examine how the social practices of African American families--with children in grades K-2--changed as a result of participating in a family literacy program utilizing African American children's literature. The families were exposed, through a series of workshops, to an abundance of children's literature…

Literacy interventions in the family context have great potential to promote reading development in children. However, the results of meta-analyses indicate that family-based approaches tend not to be as effective as expected. Although the effectiveness of family literacy interventions can be assumed to hinge largely on the quality of their…

This paper deals with the relation between children's home literacy environments (HLE) and their literacy development in the first phase of primary school. On the basis of a broad conceptualisation of the HLE, we identified three home literacy profiles (rich, child-directed and poor HLE). Firstly, we related these profiles to socio-cultural…

The purpose of Even Start, as outlined in federal legislation, is to help break the intergenerational cycle of poverty and low literacy by providing a unified family literacy program for low-income families. Even Start has three related goals: (1) to help parents improve their literacy or basic education skills; (2) to help parents become full…

Pennsylvania's family literacy programs were subjected to a statewide evaluation in 1999-2000. Data were collected through focus groups with parents, a survey of staff in community agencies and organizations, and analyses of program data and the findings of selected assessments administered to adults and children involved in the program.…