To begin with
The sixth year of elementary school: a sensitive period for literacy development.
For moms and kids who are tired of reading lists

Chapter 1.
Developing elementary literacy through mom-led book clubs

The Secret to Improving Literacy in 3rd and 4th Grade Elementary School Students
Guiding Reading of Non-Fiction Books | Developing Reading Motivation | Using the Elementary School Library | Teaching Vocabulary |
Guiding students through activity sheets | Building writing confidence with one-paragraph writing | Guiding students through manuscript writing and editing

Why Mom's Book Club?
Is private reading tutoring really necessary? | The Benefits of Book Clubs: Moms Grow Together Through Conversation |
The secret to being able to run a book club for 6 years

Mom's Book Club: What should we do and how?
Starting a Book Club: Who Should We Join? | Choosing Books: What Should We Read? |
Mom Reads First: What's the Point of This Book? | Create an Activity Sheet: What Questions Should I Ask? |
Leading a Book Club: What Do We Do Together? | The Role of a Book Club Leader Mom: How Do We Proceed?

Chapter 2.
Mom's Book Club Activities to Develop Elementary Literacy
How to Use Reading Activity Sheets and Manuscript Notebooks

Book Club Activities for Third Graders
The Boy Who Guards the Backyard | Baraumi Fox Elementary School | Paper Rice | Blessings to All the Mice in the World! |
Canned Food from Outer Space | Nobody Knows My Heart | Give Me a Fringe | My Name is Pippi Longstocking |
Don't Hit! Don't Hit! & Children Disappearing from Subway Stations | How to Use Mom & Mom's Manual |
A Village Without Studying & A Country Without Studying | Flower Shoes | My Friend Winn-Dixie | The Wrong Class President |
My Name is Paddington | The Silent Game | The Lost Princess | Little Rabbit George's Hill |
Mary Poppins Flying in on an Umbrella | To Mr. Henshaw

Book Club Activities for 4th Graders
Space Hotel & How is Trash Recycled? | A Tasteful Voyage Through History | Symbol #3: Anseokbong |
Inequality in the Global Village | The Birth of the Day | A Fool Who Needs to Read a Hundred Times to Know | A Bowl of Udon for Children |
How Are Wealth and Poverty Created? | That Summer's Dumbo | The History Book That Records Second Place |
Alice in Wonderland | Learn about the island economy here |
Find the hidden treasure in the trash! & How many kg is my carbon footprint? |
Age-Adjusting Time Machine | Shin Saimdang: Friends of Nature in Painting | Happy Ending for All of Us |
Education Debate | The Nutcracker | Jeong Yak-jeon, the Fish Teacher | Goodbye, Vietnam

For 3rd and 4th graders, where learning gaps begin to emerge.
Mom's Literacy Reading and Writing Instruction Method

Unlike in the past when the six years of elementary school were divided into three-year periods, the third and fourth grades are now grouped together and categorized as 'middle grades', and attention is being paid to this period.
This is because the previously invisible 'learning gap' is revealed, and the child's self-esteem, that is, the perception that he or she is a good or bad student, is formed.
If the child fails to catch up with the learning gap or fails to develop self-esteem in studying, he or she is likely to gradually lose interest and enthusiasm in academics.

It is around this time that people become interested in private education in order to catch up with the learning gap or to widen it further.
In recent years, interest in literacy, a fundamental skill for learning all subjects and an essential skill for living in this world, has rapidly increased, leading to an increasing reliance on private tutoring for even reading education.

However, the two authors of this book, Choi Na-ya, a professor at Seoul National University and a mother of one, a child literacy expert who appeared on EBS's "Your Literacy" and "Literacy Kindergarten," and Jeong Su-jeong, a teacher-librarian who has worked in an elementary school library for over 20 years, say that parents can sufficiently develop their children's literacy simply by reading books with their children and talking about the content, instead of expensive private reading and writing tutoring.
These words are all the more sincere because they come from Professor Choi Na-ya's own experience of being a 'book club' member with her child and his friends for six years in elementary school and still continuing to this day, now in the third year of middle school.


The three-volume series, “A Mother’s Secret to Developing Elementary Literacy,” contains the book club activities that Professor Choi Na-ya, a busier mother than anyone else, has been doing with her son for six years of elementary school.
This book is suitable for elementary and middle school students, who are at the peak of their literacy development sensitive period, at level 2.
Let's find out how to improve literacy skills in 3rd and 4th graders, which has recently been receiving the most attention among the 6 years of elementary school, in "Mom's Secret to Improving Elementary Literacy, Step 2."

Stimulates curiosity and fills in background knowledge
Reading non-fiction books

As the integrated curriculum from the third grade of elementary school is becoming more specialized and English is introduced as a regular class, it is necessary to satisfy children's growing curiosity and help them build background knowledge related to the curriculum as they begin to learn in earnest.
The most helpful thing for this is ‘reading non-fiction books.’
Reading non-fiction books can be a great way to prevent biased reading habits and help close learning gaps.

In 『Mom's Secret to Developing Elementary Literacy, Step 2』, the book list includes non-fiction books.
We took special care to avoid focusing on any particular field by including books from various fields such as history, economics, science, people, culture, environment, and art.
Another key feature is that it is structured so that you can read literary and non-literary books alternately and clearly feel the difference between them.
Up until the third grade of elementary school, the list is composed of storybooks to reduce resistance to books with a lot of text and to encourage interest in reading itself. However, if your child prefers informational books, it is recommended to include non-fiction books evenly in the book club book list.

Of course, reading non-fiction books does not necessarily resolve learning gaps or improve children's literacy skills.
One thing that should never be overlooked is asking ‘good questions.’
This book, like 'Step 1', does not just show one or two example questions, but shows hundreds of examples through actual reading activity sheets.
At this stage, when teaching reading with newly introduced non-fiction books, we can also examine how to ask questions that will help children develop their literacy skills.
Therefore, it provides practical help to mothers who have given up on teaching their children to read.
Even beginners in reading education can easily develop their children's literacy skills by providing explanations of the purpose and intent of the questions, as well as the teaching method.

Building confidence in elementary writing
Write a paragraph

If in the lower grades of elementary school it was meaningful to write down one or two lines of thoughts, from middle school onwards, students should be able to express appropriate answers to questions in writing based on correct spelling.
To achieve this, sufficient paragraph writing practice is necessary starting from the 3rd or 4th grade of elementary school.
It may be a bit early to call the writing of middle-grade elementary school students essay writing, but the paragraph writing practice you begin now will serve as a solid foundation for essay writing for college entrance exams in the future.

In 『Mom's Secret to Developing Elementary Literacy, Step 2』, the focus is on 'writing a paragraph'.
In line with the 'paragraph structure' that appears in the 3rd grade Korean language curriculum, we have provided opportunities for consistent practice in the book club based on what we learned at school.
For children at this age, writing a paragraph consisting of one main sentence and several supporting sentences is sufficient.
It is important not to discourage children from writing by aiming for too long a piece from the beginning.
Just as reading efficacy, which is the perception that one is good at reading, is necessary for the development of literacy, writing efficacy, which is the perception that one is good at writing, is also necessary for the development of literacy.

A child who is a beginner in writing cannot write a paragraph from the beginning.
In order for a child to write, he needs to ask his mother another question.
Let's prepare a customized question so that you can compose a paragraph to answer the question and end up with a fairly complete piece of writing.
This book is full of hints for custom questions, so all you have to do is ask the questions.
And instead of having children write about this question right away, we just need to provide time for them to talk with their friends, listen to various opinions, compare their thoughts with their own, accept and criticize them, and then internalize them.
Through this process, children become more confident in their writing and learn that a piece of logically organized writing can leave a more powerful impression than words.
And this soon leads to writing confidence in elementary and middle grades.


Practice making the form as important as the content
'Write one 200-character manuscript page'

In 『Mom's Secret to Developing Elementary Literacy, Step 2』, 'writing manuscripts' is introduced to book club reading activities starting from the 4th grade of elementary school.
This is to help you develop the habit of writing on traditional manuscript paper, which gives you a more intense feeling of writing.

Chapter 1 separately introduces how to write manuscripts and how to use manuscript proofreading marks, so you can study them together with your child and then start with a light heart.
At first, writing a manuscript may feel difficult, but as you continue to write, the burden will lessen, and you will develop the habit of using punctuation marks that are easy to miss, as well as spacing and spelling, so that you can write essays with formatting that is as important as the content in essay tests in the future.

To this end, from this second stage onwards, a special appendix called “200-character manuscript note for developing elementary literacy skills” will be provided.
Just guide writing as the final step of the book club meeting, with the goal of filling a 200-character sheet of manuscript paper, no more, no less.
It would be the icing on the cake if the mother briefly edited the children's writing and had them read it to each other.
You can personally experience that even if your thoughts are similar, the way you express your sentences can be different, and you can check the content of the corrections, which helps you write better essays several times over.
As the child's writings pile up in this manuscript notebook, their literacy skills will also gradually grow.

If you don't quickly catch up with the learning gap that occurs in the third and fourth grades of elementary school, it becomes increasingly difficult to catch up as you advance in grade level.
And it is no exaggeration to say that the learning gap depends on literacy.
Mothers who are new to reading education and have read countless books on reading education but are at a loss as to how to actually apply them will be able to find specific and practical hints in this book.
Also, if you don't have time to make your own activity sheets, you can help your child develop literacy skills with the activity sheets in the book that Professor Choi Na-ya has carefully created.
As you read and discuss the same books with your child, your child's literacy skills will increase, as will their emotional satisfaction and bond with you.
Is there anything more valuable than conversations shared through books? Let's boost your child's literacy with a mom-friendly book club.