ARWA
For researchers studying literacy development, literacy impairment, or expert linguistic processing via print in Asia
History before ARWA
The Association for Reading and Writing in Asia was registered as a society on 18 July, 2016, when a group of researchers attending a symposium on reading and writing in Korea voted to move from hosting yearly regional symposia with an audience that primarily consisted of invited participants to hosting a full-fledged conference on reading and writing, open to all academics and students interested in this topic. Some of those who were most instrumental in forming this association from the beginning were Professor Akira UNO, who is Honorary Founder of ARWA, Jeung-Ryeul CHO, Kevin CHUNG, Li-Yu HUNG, and Taeko WYDELL. Details of the development of ARWA follow.
Professor Akira Uno (University of Tsukuba, Japan) initiated a regional symposium in 2013 to enhance interactions among researchers and graduate students who were interested in Asian languages and to link the network of researchers who were working on learning difficulties in reading and writing of Asian languages. Four annual symposia have been held in the past four years (2013-2016). Ultimately, in 2016, we created ARWA in order to extend participants from focusing on Japanese, Korean, and Chinese more or less exclusively to focusing on multiple languages and orthographies of Asia.
The First Symposium: Korea-Japan Joint Symposium on Reading and Spelling (KJRAS)
2013
The first symposium was organized in Seoul, Korea by Akira Uno (University of Tsukuba, Japan), Sung-Kyu Choi (Daegu University, Korea) and Hong Joong Cho (Chonnam National University, Korea) on February16, 2013. In the symposium, 13 papers were presented and best presentation awards were given to Soon-Gil Park (Nambu University, Korea) and Noriko Akashi (University of Tsukuba, Japan)
The Second Symposium: East Asia Symposium on Reading and Spelling (EARAS)
2014
The second symposium was organized in Tokyo, Japan by Akira Uno (University of Tsukuba, Japan) and Masato Kaneko (Teikyo Heisei University, Japan) on February 22-23, 2014. A keynote speaker, Taeko Wydell (Brunel University, UK) gave a talk entitled ‘Language universality and specificity of reading: Alphabetic orthographies vs non-alphabetic orthographies.’ In this symposium, 20 papers were presented and best presentation awards were given to Li-Yu Hung (National Taiwan University, Taiwan), Hsiu-Fen Chen (National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan), and Tomoe Inomata (University of Tsukuba, Japan). Over 40 scholars participated in the symposium.
The Third Symposium: East Asia Symposium on Reading and Spelling (EARAS)
2015
The third symposium was organized in Taipei, Taiwan by Li-Yu Hung (National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan) on March 7-9, 2015. Two keynote speakers, namely, Catherine McBride (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong) and Malatesha Joshi (Texas A & M University, USA) were invited and 11 oral presentations and 12 interactive posters were presented. Over one hundred scholars participated in the symposium, and best presentation awards were given to Mio Yokoi (University of Tsukuba, Japan) and Hsiao Lan Wang (National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan).
The Fourth Symposium: Asia Symposium on Reading and Spelling (ARAS)
2016
The 4th symposium was held in Seoul by Jeung-Ryeul Cho (Kyungnam University, Korea) on February 19-20, 2016. There were 3 keynote speeches by Catherine McBride (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong), Connie S.-H. Ho (University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong) and Malatesha Joshi (Texas A & M University, USA), 11 oral presentations, and 25 poster presentations were given. Over 70 scholars participated in the symposium. Best presentation awards were given to Han-Suk Bae (Seoul National University of Education, Korea) and Hsiu-Fen Chen (National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan).
On February 20, 2016, committee members (Akira Uno, Li-Yu Hung, Catherine McBride, Connie S.-H. Ho, Kevin K. H. Chung, Malatesha Joshi, Jeung-Ryeul Cho, and Soyeong Pae) decided to form a new formal association, the Association for Reading and Writing in Asia (ARWA) to function as a broader society and also to sponsor conferences in future years. Catherine McBride was elected as President and Li-Yu Hung as Vice President. Kevin K. H. Chung (Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong) was appointed to organize the next symposium in 2017. This symposium was the first annual meeting under the newly named Association for Reading and Writing in Asia (ARWA). Other Board members, including Terry AU, Su LI, Phil D. LIU, and Taeko Wydell joined over the course of 2016. Thus, the inaugural meeting took place in Hong Kong on February 24-25, 2017. ARWA then hosted a meeting in Tsukuba, Japan in 2018 and in Goa, India in 2019. The 2020 conference was hosted jointly from Beijing and Hong Kong. The 2021 conference will be held virtually in March from Taipei.