Even Start Family Literacy The New Jersey Department of
Education, through its Office of Language Arts Literacy
Education, administers the United States Department of
Education’s Even Start Family Literacy Program. The focus of the
Even Start Family Literacy Program is to improve the life
chances for New Jersey families by: - Providing instruction to
children ages birth to seven that will result in children
reading on grade level by age seven; - Empowering parents to
become their children’s first teachers, drawing on the home and
family unit as the most influential learning environment; -
Providing adult education instruction that leads to the
attainment or improvement of literacy skills and the achievement
of economic self-sufficiency; - Developing community
partnerships to form a network of providers that, individually
and collectively, take responsibility for providing and
strengthening family literacy services (Guide to Quality: Even
Start Family Literacy Program, 2001).