OKLAHOMA CITY -- Parents around the metro spent their Saturday in the classroom, learning how to better prepare their children for kindergarten.

"How to teach them how to recognize letters, put the letters together and sounds, and hopefully I can have them ready by the time they start kindergarten," Kari Morales, whose grandchildren will enter kindergarten soon, said.

Morales said she has full custody of her grandchildren, and she said she attends the "Ready For Kindergarten" programs so she can help them get a head start for school.

The program, run by the Oklahoma Public Schools, is geared toward parents with children 5 years old or younger.

School officials said the goal is to stress to parents the importance of starting early with childhood learning.

"Those are the best years, especially 0-3, to enable them (with) better language skills, better math skills," State of Education Child Development spokeswoman Pam Hibbs said.

The program is in its second year, so the children whose parents attended last year are just finishing kindergarten now.