[One Day One Thousand Characters] Red Pen 'Reading Marathon' to Foster Children's Reading Habits

Kyowon Group's Red Pen is embarking on a special marathon with children. It is not a marathon running on the streets, but a reading marathon involving 150 books.

Since 2019, Red Pen has been conducting the reading habit formation project called the '150 Reading Marathon.' Targeting children from age 4 to 6th grade in elementary school, the reading marathon has accumulated over 72,800 child participants to date.

The reading marathon is based on Red Pen's smart reading management program, the ‘Creative Convergence Gifted School.’ It was designed to help children develop balanced reading habits through a variety of books across different fields. A key feature of the reading marathon is reading diverse books in areas such as language, society, science, and arts, and having weekly emotional conversations with parents.

Over 15 weeks, participants complete various missions and read more than 150 books to finish the full 42.195 km marathon distance. The distance calculation is based on ▲reading ▲attendance ▲emotional conversations with parents ▲writing reviews. Reading 10 books per week counts as 200 meters per book, and attending 5 days per week counts as 300 meters per week.

Additionally, conducting emotional conversations with parents can earn up to 400 meters per week, and writing a review adds 1000 meters. When reading books, participants can conveniently check their running distance and location automatically on the reading marathon app. All participants who complete the reading marathon receive a finisher medal, a certificate of completion, and convenience store gift certificates.

Example of participation in the Red Pen '150 Reading Marathon'. (Photo by Online Community Capture)

The reading marathon has currently been held up to the 6th session. Each session has averaged over 10,000 participants. While finishing is possible by reading 150 books over 15 weeks, many participants have read more than 250 books during this period. Reviewing the reading activity of marathon finishers, they read an average of 13.1 books per week and spent 236 minutes weekly reading.

Meanwhile, Red Pen will recruit participants for the 7th reading marathon from February 5 to 16. Participants will join the marathon from February 19 to June 2. A Kyowon Red Pen official explained, “The 150 Reading Marathon is a reading support project where members of the Creative Convergence Gifted School can enjoy reading, build background knowledge, and feel a sense of achievement. Through a variety of books, it helps develop creative thinking skills.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.