@EdWorkingPaper{ai26-1639,
title = "Increasing Take-Up of Literacy Tutoring: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment",
author = "Misty Gallo, Patrick J. Wolf, Harry A. Patrinos",
number = "1639",
year = "2026",
month = "November",
URL = "http://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai26-1639",
abstract = {Government programs often experience low take-up, limiting their potential positive impact. We examine whether reducing registration frictions can increase participation in a state-financed literacy intervention program. In a randomized field experiment, families received either encouragement and a simplified enrollment process, or these interventions plus text message nudges, relative to a business-as-usual control group. We find that encouragement and simplified registration increased take-up by more than 10 percentage points, while a fuller treatment of encouragement, simplified enrollment, and text nudges increased take-up by 6 percentage points. We also estimate the impact of these treatments to promote use of funding and amount of funding used to access tutoring. We find positive intent-to-treat effects with the fuller treatment showing a strong impact on use and amount of funding used. These low-cost interventions offer a promising strategy for increasing participation in government programs.},
}