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The increased use of smartphones and tablets sets the stage for new mobile-based educational programs that seek to increase student learning and engagement in school and at home. This study examines the effectiveness of Escribo Play, a game-enhanced educational program, on preschool students' phonological awareness, word reading, and writing skills. The randomized controlled trial was conducted with 749 students from 62 classrooms from 17 schools located in five cities. Quantitative pretesting and posttesting procedures using standardized instruments were employed. The results indicate that the experimental classrooms that used the 20 games for 3 months gained 68% in their reading scores compared to control classrooms (d = 0.40). They also gained 48% more in writing scores (d = 0.20). Multilevel analysis indicated that these findings were statistically significant.

Mobile games can foster the early mathematics skills of children in poverty at home. This randomized controlled trial examines the efficacy of Escribo Play, an evidence-based, game-enhanced early mathematics program with an initial pool of 2980 first-grade students from 267 classrooms in 132 schools located in Brazil. The intervention reached 47% of the children who installed and used the application. Students from 56 classrooms (20%) did not use the application. The intervention retained 51% of those who installed the application. Children of the experimental group who played Escribo Play advanced 2.27 times more than the increase of the control group for number identification, 2.78 times more in count-sequence, 1.73 times more in geometric shape, and 1.41 times more in spatial sense. The overall reduction in disparities between participants from pretest to posttest of the experimental group was 9.1 times higher than the control group, indicating that the intervention reduced learning inequality for those that played the games. The higher gains observed among those children who used Escribo Play may be attributed to its interactive nature, employing evidence-based instructional strategies with engaging and interactive content (i.e., animation and games). The cost per pupil is much lower than reported in 90% of other educational interventions. The application is easy to scale and provides learning gains for first-grade students. • The intervention retained 51% of the children. • Students who played advanced 2.27 times more in number identification. • They advanced 2.78x more in count-sequence and 1.73x more in geometric shape. • On average the children that played advanced twice more than the others. • Learning disparities were reduced 9.1 times more among the children that played. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]