The objective of this study was to examine the pattern of development of elementary learners’ reading strategy and attitude through think‐aloud. This research was conducted from the 2nd semester of 2008 to the 2nd semester of 2009 and connected longitudinally to the 1st semester of 2010, and ultimately aimed at explaining relational principles in the development of the two factors. Assuming that what to be achieved through Korean language education is the ability to think in Korean, it is desirable to help learners exercise their cognition‐oriented thinking ability and emotion‐oriented thinking ability interactively with each other. Reading strategy is related with cognition‐oriented thinking, and reading attitude is related with emotion‐oriented thinking. In this study, the transcription and analysis of think‐aloud materials were made mainly by qualitative research methods. In addition, quantitative methods were used complementarily in order to compare the frequency of think‐aloud according to the constructs of reading ability, to compare reading attitude between before and after the experiment, and to determine change in each learner’s developmental position in the window chart. Findings from this study are that each individual learner has his or her unique process of reading development and that the strategy in reading development drives reading attitude or vice versa and the two factors interact with each other positively or negatively. In addition, the window chart, which indicated each learner’s position of reading development in the 1st and 2nd years, is useful in examining the reading development of skillful, moderate and unskillful readers. Studying the development of reading strategy and reading attitude at the same time is meaningful as a reflection on cold cognitive reading and as a window for integrative inquiry into learners’ reading process.