An early-learning system and method wherein its systemic form features a manually learner-manipulable structure including (a) at least one pair of adjacent, operatively associated, relatively shiftable, learning-information carriers organized, with respect to one another, as dedicated foreground and background carriers having a defined condition of permitted, relative-shifting motion, and (b) visual, partial-learning-element units carried by each of these carriers, each unit which is carried by one of the carriers, through an act involving relative shifting of the two carriers, being combinable visually and selectively with at least one such unit which is carried by the other carrier, thus to form a visual, full-learning element.