The Oak Harbor School District is offering a free program to teach parents how they can improve the skills of their children before they enter kindergarten.

Ready! for Kindergarten is offered in three different sessions and focuses on three skill sets: language and literacy, math and reasoning, and social and emotional skills.

The first session is 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 15, at the Oak Harbor Elementary School multipurpose room.

The free sessions are open to all parents and guardians of children ages birth to 5 years old.

The program provides parents with educational toys to use at home, as well as lessons on how to utilize the toys to educate their children.

Parents also learn about different “experiences” they can provide their children at home, according to preschool teacher Kathy Ridle, who runs the program.

Examples, she said, include reading to children at home to enrich vocabulary and counting exercises.

“The time that children actually learn the most and the easiest is from birth to 5,” Ridle said, “and parents spend the most time with their children anyway … so they are their child’s best teacher.

“If we can give them skills to help them, then everybody benefits, especially the child.”

The program will be conducted over several months.

“It’s built as a series of three, so we don’t just want you to come in October, we want you to come in February and April, so that way, you’ll hit all those … learning targets that we focus on,” Ridle said.

Though each session covers some topics in each of the three learning targets, the main focus of the first one will be language and literacy, the second will mainly be focused on math and reasoning, and the third will mainly be focused on social and emotional skills.

Sessions are separated into age groups, one year of age at a time, and participants will need to choose which one their child falls into. If parents have children in multiple age groups, they would have to choose whichever one they think will be the most beneficial to them.

To register for the class, contact Ridle either by email at kridle@ohsd.net or calling 360-279-5945. There are 20 spots available in each of the five age groups.