Effects of a family literacy program on low-literate children and their parents: findings from an evaluation of the Even Start family literacy program.

A randomized experiment was conducted to test the effectiveness of Even Start, a federally supported family literacy program providing early childhood education, adult education, parenting education, and joint parent-child literacy activities to children and parents from low-literate families. The evaluation of 18 Even Start projects followed 463 families for 2 years and found no statistically significant or educationally important impacts on Even Start families when they were compared with control families on child literacy outcomes, parent literacy outcomes, or parent-child interactions. The study concludes that Even Start projects were able to properly implement family literacy programs, and the observed lack of effectiveness is attributed to a combination of 2 factors: (a) a lack of full participation on the part of families and (b) instructional services that may be ineffective because of the curriculum content or the instructional approach. ((c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved).

RCT Entities:   Population Interventions Outcomes