ABSTRACT

One of the core goals of family literacy programs is to serve young children through the provision of early childhood education services. According to the mandate given by the Even Start Family Literacy legislation, Even Start programs are to provide an age-appropriate education to prepare children for success in school and life experiences. The empirical basis for providing early childhood education services comes from decades of research showing that early education helps improve the cognitive and academic functioning of children, particularly those who come from economically disadvantaged families and communities (e.g., Campbell & Ramey, 1994; Lazar, Darlington, Murray, Royce, & Snipper, 1982; Schweinhart, Barnes, & Weikart, 1993). An emerging set of studies goes beyond the simple question of effectiveness to explore actual program processes and mechanisms of program effects (Berlin, O’Neal, & Brooks-Gunn, 1998; Hauser-Cram, 1990; Schorr & Booth, 1991).