The Osceola County School District is trying to improve literacy for its youngest minds. The “Osceola Reads” initiative centers on a free app for local families.

The Osceola County School district finds only 13 percent of children entering kindergarten are ready for their first day. Kelly Trace is doing outreach for Osceola Reads.

She said a pilot study showed the app improved preparedness for students to “be able to start to learn sounds, colors, sentence structure, stories, critical thinking, memorization, those kinds of things,” said Trace.

She said Osceola County does offer voluntary Pre-K but some parents don’t enroll their kids or even know about the program. The district and other local government entities pitched in to pay the licensing for the app.