About Mouseion
In 2019, the Mouseion Jiangwancheng Children's Reading Centre opened. It is a widely honoured child-friendly space and a highly acclaimed international child-friendly demonstration library.
Our Story
"The way to make a child wise is to read, read, and read again." — Vasily Sukhomlinsky
The Mouseion community encourages children and families to read widely across many kinds of books; while nurturing a love of their country and traditional culture, it also supports young readers in developing an international outlook.
The world is in a wave of globalisation, and building global competence in children has become a shared goal across countries. Global competence includes the ability to analyse global and intercultural issues, to appreciate and understand the values and worldviews of others, to communicate effectively with people from different cultural backgrounds, and to take action for the sustainable development of all humanity.
What is the foundation for building these abilities? How do our children come to see and understand the world? They will face collisions of differing views; only by understanding themselves and their surroundings correctly can children play their social roles well, adapt to domestic and international society, fully develop and apply their strengths, and grow in every way.
We hope that young readers, beginning with learning to read and to communicate in this small Mouseion community, grow into children of a new era who carry a sense of national mission and possess global competence.
Philosophy
Every child is unique. According to Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, human intelligence falls into eight kinds: bodily, logical, spatial, intrapersonal, naturalistic, interpersonal, linguistic and musical. We help children find the reading content that interests them most, and unlock their future potential.
The ultimate goal of reading is to gain information. Beyond its form, language is a carrier of content. Within the same subject, everyone can seek out their own point of interest; a book can be read not only from the front but also from the back.
At an early age we do not aim at tests; starting from the phonics bridge, we use unfamiliar texts, phonics transfer and work portfolios to check whether a child can truly use what they have learned.
Language levels, text difficulty and test scores come from different measurement systems. We never treat any two scales as mechanically equivalent; the real evidence is a child's independent understanding, thinking and expression in a new text.
"Although I do not believe every child can become a genius, every child has their own strengths; we should uncover those strengths, encourage them and cultivate them." — Howard Gardner, developmental psychologist, Harvard University
Our Team
Mouseion has a professional team of reading mentors who design a personalised reading plan for each student, demonstrating reading strategies and techniques in condensed reading sessions, so that children internalise sound reading methods through imitation and practice.
They move the class forward with questions and discussion, prompting higher-order thinking; observing, recording and giving feedback so that each child's growth can be traced.
They design stage goals and project-based reading activities, aligning course milestones, text difficulty and actual achievement.
Using an online e-book library and encyclopaedia search platform, they assess and track the reading process and adjust the reading plan as needed.
They look after a collection of more than 20,000 books and plan book fairs, lectures, camps and community cultural events, keeping the space alive.
Partners
The collection spans four domains — Natural Science, Life Science, Social Science and Humanities & Arts — and includes classics from dozens of publishing groups such as National Geographic, DK, Scholastic, Pearson, Cambridge and Penguin.
More than 20,000 English-language original books, meeting the knowledge needs of young readers across ages 4–18.
Come Say Hi
Ten thousand original books from around the world can take your child "out" into a bigger world without leaving home; and if you want to measure growth with your own footsteps, the world-exploration events Mouseion plans regularly will leave the most vivid notes on childhood.
