Talking with parents and educators in Seoul, Launa Hall discovers at the elementary level a surprising balance of rigor, creativity, joy, and cultural pride in literacy in a country known for its high academic achievement.
Yes, teach print awareness. Let kids see the text you are reading (or writing) and bring their attention to it. Talk about those spaces between words, and don’t hesitate to point to the words that you are reading. But don’t spend a lot of time on fronts and backs of books or how to turn pages or whether numbers and letters are different.
