Information alone is insufficient for increasing low-income children’s math test skills or parental engagement in math activities. The provision of materials in concert with messaging to dissuade parents from procrastinating is effective at increasing scores and parental engagement, as are digital math apps.

Goal-setting messages led to an increase in parent reading time but had no effect on literacy skills, while reminder messages led to a decrease in literacy skills, despite no significant difference in reading time; also, technology may help boost reading skills of low-income children.

While most approaches to early childhood development (ECD) programs focus on finding the “best program” to implement, this paper focuses on common mechanisms and relationships that transport across environments to reveal the power of fostering parenting or parental investment as essential to effective ECD.

Parents who received financial incentives and text message reminders were 28% more likely to attend a preschool event; the same parents were also more likely to attend unincentivized events.

When parents struggle financially or experience loneliness (financial and social connections scarcity), their attention to other responsibilities drops significantly, often resulting in poor decision-making that can exacerbate the problem and trap them in a “scarcity mindset.”

Influencing parental beliefs about child development can be an important pathway to raising parental investments and reducing socioeconomic gaps in children’s skills; however, simple informational policies may not be sufficient.

Educators and caregivers are generally thoughtful about choosing books to read to their young children, or when selecting books for children to read themselves. They may look for books that entertain, educate, and otherwise incorporate values that they hold dear. However, if those values include race and gender diversity, they will have to search a little harder.

Children learn many things from the books they read, and some of the most important...