The William F. Goodling Even Start Family Literacy Programs, known as Even Start, intend to help break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy by improving the educational opportunities of low-income families by integrating early childhood education, adult literacy or adult basic education, and parenting education into a unified family literacy program for federally recognized Indian tribes and tribal organizations. Activities funded under this program build on high-quality existing community resources to create a new range of educational services for most-in-need families; promote the academic achievement of children and adults; assist children from low-income families to meet challenging state content and student achievement standards; and use instructional programs based on scientifically based reading research and on the prevention of reading difficulties for children and adults, to the extent that such research is available.
