Early Years Column

Programs combining preschool for youngsters with adult-literacy and employment-skill training for parents are helping to "break the cycle of hand-me-down illiteracy," according to the National Center for Family Literacy.

The center is conducting two longitudinal studies of some 350 families involved in programs in Kentucky, West Virginia, Indiana, and North Carolina that bring low-income, undereducated parents and their preschoolers together for classes. The programs are based on the Kenan Trust Family Literacy Model funded by the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Contrary to national data projecting high rates of failure for at-risk children, first-year data from the studies showed that three-fourths of the children in the model programs ranked in the upper half of their elementary school classes, and that one-third were...