| Sumario: | Purpose: This article provides information about the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES). It also presents the findings of a study that capitalizes on the strengths of the data from FACES to investigate the impact of child and family characteristics, speech-language impairment, and the home literacy environment on the language and early literacy outcomes of children from lowincome families. Method: Data from the FACES 1997 cohort were used in this study. Variables included in the analysiswere child and family characteristics (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity, etc.); parent report of speech-language impairment; frequency of home literacy activities; and children's scores on vocabulary, letter-word identification, and early reading assessments. Results: The results revealed that children's vocabulary abilities in Head Start were affected by maternal education, ethnicity, and the frequency of home literacy activities, and children's letter-word identification abilities were impacted bymaternal education and the child's gender and age. Additionally, children's reading abilities in kindergarten were predicted by ethnicity, speech-language impairment, and the home literacy environment, as well as by children's vocabulary and letter-word identification abilities in Head Start. Conclusion: The findings demonstrate the unique contributions that the home literacy environment and the presence of speech-language impairment during preschool make in children's early reading outcomes.
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