The program goal of family literacy is to use early intervention to break the cycle of illiteracy perpetuated by parents' undereducation. This paper describes family literacy as a dropout prevention strategy that should be most heavily concentrated on the prenatal through 8-year-old child; a child ready for school is less likely to become a dropout. In addition to developing children's emergent literacy skills, a second benefit of family literacy programs is that they encourage parents to become supportive coaches for their children in school. The document notes three nontraditional incentives that are built into many programs to attract former dropouts: the parent's experiences with collaborative learning, the child's insistence on wanting to participate, and the"parent-friendly" location of the programs. Parental self-esteem is also reinforced with overt and subtle messages. The five-page narrative is accompanied by a chart describing models deserving national recognition. Program name/origin, children targeted, sites, and description are provided. A table provides a suggested list of community resources for collaboration necessary for a high quality program. Names, addresses, and telephone numbers of 11 cited program contacts and 21 references are listed. (YLB)