Dear Steve,
And Hello to the Family Literacy Discussion List!
I am the new Senior Program Officer for Early Childhood Literacy at NIFL. 
In response to Steve's inquiry, I would like to direct you to the National
Institute for Literacy's facts and statistics page,
<http://www.nifl.gov/nifl/facts/facts.html>.
I've included a few of the literacy fact sheet links below:
Parental Involvement in Learning Fact Sheet,
<http://www.nifl.gov/nifl/facts/parental.html>
Family Environment and Family Literacy,
<http://www.nifl.gov/nifl/facts/family.html>
Reading Facts, <http://www.nifl.gov/nifl/facts/reading_facts.html>
Other resources/links that might be useful:
American Academy of Pediatrics Journal, Pediatrics,
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/113/6/S1/1944
Forum on Child and Family Statistics
America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being 2005,
http://childstats.gov/americaschildren/
2006 Kids Count Data Book ,http://www.aecf.org/kidscount/
Additional resources that may be of interest:
Eager to Learn: Educating Our Preschoolers 
by Barbara T. Bowman (Editor), Suzanne Donovan (Editor), M. Susan Burns
(Editor) 
2001

>From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development by

National Research Council, Jack P. Shonkoff, Deborah Phillips, and Committee
on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development, 2000.
Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children

by Betty Hart, Todd R. Risley, 1995 


Andrea Grimaldi
Senior Program Officer, Early Childhood Literacy
National Institute for Literacy
1775 I Street NW, Suite 730
Washington, DC 20006-2401
Phone:  (202) 233-2036
Fax:      (202) 233-2050
Email:    agrimaldi at nifl.gov