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Can mobile games foster the early literacy skills of children in poverty? This pioneering study examines the barriers faced to implement an evidence-based, game-enhanced educational phonological and phonemic awareness program in 12 public schools serving students in poverty in a developing country. The deployment team adequately mitigated barriers such as the lack of proper information and communication technologies and school staff shortages. School interruptions due to sports events, three strikes, and rain that flooded the streets where children in poverty lived challenged the implementation of the intervention. In addition to discussing barriers we faced in the implementation, we also examined the mobile-based intervention's efficacy on 351 kindergarten students' word reading and writing skills. The experimental group children grew 3.63 times more than the control group in reading (d = 0.67) and 2.78 times more in writing (d = 0.36). Compared to 495 high-quality interventions, the Escribo Play effect size ranked above 90% of them. Its per-pupil cost is equivalent to one percent of the average educational intervention cost. Compared with 104 reading interventions conducted in kindergarten, the Escribo Play effect size was 3.35 times stronger than the reading intervention benchmark. • ICT and staffing issues of schools serving children in poverty were mitigated. • School closures due to strikes, floods and sports events harmed the delivery. • Children advanced 3.63 times more in reading and 2.78 times more in writing. • The effect of the games was 3.35 times stronger than 104 reading interventions. • Mobile-based reading instruction was 2.79 times more effective than computer-based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]