The gap in academic skills between low-income and higher-income children emerges early in life. To help close this gap, we conducted two RCTs with low-income parents of preschool-age children in Chicago to increase children's literacy and math skills through providing technology and behavioral tools. Children and Parents Engaged in Reading (CAPER) is an 11-month reading intervention that uses a digital library and behavioral tools to increase parents’ reading time and children's literacy skills. Parents in CAPER were randomized into four groups: 1) a control group and groups that received 2) digital library only, 3) digital library with reminder texts, and 4) digital library with goal-setting texts. The pooled average child literacy test score across all three treatment groups that received a digital library was significantly higher (0.23 SD) than the control group. However, we found
evidence that adding goal-setting or reminders to the digital library yields lower efficiency in
increasing children's literacy skills than the digital library alone, suggesting that nudging may reduce the quality of reading even when quantity is increased. In the second experiment, Math for Parents and Children Together (MPACT), we found that providing parents with information and materials relevant to engaging in math activities along with behavioral messages to reduce parents’ present bias increased both parents’ engagement in math activities and children’s math skill during a 12-week intervention. But a separate treatment arm that provided families with high-quality math apps that required no parent engagement increased children’s math skill by at least as much. Together, the results suggest that technology may reduce frictions to parent engagement in children’s skill development in low-income families and may represent a promising way to boost young children’s literacy and math skills.