This report examines recent research and program developments designed to improve the education of children by improving the literacy skills of their parents, particularly their mothers, who did not graduate from high school. Traditional research has revealed that more highly educated mothers have greater success in providing their children with the cognitive language skills that contribute to early success in school than less well-educated mothers. A growing body of recent research, however, suggests that the way parents raise their children may be more important than the parents' occupation, income, or educational level. During the past decade there has been growing interest in the notion that educationally disadvantaged parents and children are a learning unit, and that family and intergenerational literacy programs can provide parents with needed support in their role as first teachers. Programs which seek to improve parents' literacy and other skills include Even Start, the Kenan Trust Family Literacy Model, and the Intergenerational Literacy Action Research Project. Two major implications from the research on the influence of parental literacy are: (1) low-literate parents, particularly mothers, are more likely to exert a positive influence on their children's academic achievement when they are able to enhance their own literacy skills than when they are unable to do so; and (2) intervention programs should be designed to enable family members to construct useful meanings and definitions of literacy. Contains a list of 18 selected readings. (MDM)