We review the effective field theory of modified gravity in which the Lagrangian involves three dimensional geometric quantities appearing in the 3+1 decomposition of space-time. On the flat isotropic cosmological background we expand a general actio
n up to second order in the perturbations of geometric scalars, by taking into account spatial derivatives higher than two. Our analysis covers a wide range of gravitational theories-- including Horndeski theory/its recent generalizations and the projectable/non-projectab
