Research suggests that while many young children arrive at school ready and eager to learn science, many others have had limited opportunities to engage with the content and practices of science due to family circumstances and lack of instructional quality in their early learning environments. This issue of The Progress for Education Reform outlines the case for including strong science curriculum and instructional supports in the early years by outlining the foundational skills and knowledge that young children bring to the science-learning endeavor, describing ways that science experiences support learning in other critical domains such as language arts, literacy and math, and presenting evidence that supporting science knowledge and skills in the early years yields school readiness and achievement benefits in later years. Implications and recommendations for practice, research and state policy are given. (author abstract)