A study examined the effectiveness of an emergent literacy program designed to encourage low-income parents to read to their children. Pre-school teachers in four low-income areas in Australia read to children in their class regularly. Three books were sent home with each child twice a week and the parents were asked to read to their children. A total of 55 families were involved. A variety of literacy measures (emergent literacy development, letter recognition, recognition of environmental print with and without logos, ability to read their own name, writing development, and knowledge of concepts about print) were administered to the children, and the mothers of children were interviewed. Follow-up studies of the children's success in school literacy were carried out for the 1989 cohort in Year One (equivalent to kindergarten in the United States) and Year Three of schooling, and for the 1991 cohort in Year One. Results indicated that: (1) the project was successful in affecting the emergent literacy competencies of children from a disadvantaged locality, in that the competencies represented by the performance tests of emergent literacy competence were more advanced in the project group than in a comparison group, with controls for a range of family environment and initial competence variables; (2) by implication, it seems the project was fairly successful in encouraging parents to read with their children; and (3) the project affected emerging literacy skills which were predictive of the school literacy score. (Eight tables of data are included; 30 references are attached.) (RS)