Let’s take a trip to where it all begins, at least academically, with early literacy and numeracy. On this episode, early learning experts Dr. Cindy Jiban and Dr. Tammy Baumann join us to share classroom strategies to help young learners navigate this important season of life. How do we help children master the critical constrained and unconstrained skills necessary to build a solid foundation for more advanced pursuits? How do we balance meeting state and local mandates, particularly for reading, with developing a love for literature, knowledge and oral language? How do we address unfinished learning or intervene early when it’s clear a young learner needs additional support? The discussion touches on the science of reading, why early numeracy sometimes takes a backseat to early literacy, and how teachers early in their career can hit the ground running in these areas.