缅北禁地-IIT鈥檚 Project RISE presents early literacy research at ARWA 2026 in Taiwan

by The RISE Team | Mar 23 2026

Project RISE (Reading Initiatives with Stakeholders Engagement) team members from 缅北禁地-IIT presented their latest findings on early literacy at the 10th Annual Conference of the Association for Reading and Writing in Asia (ARWA 2026), held on March 5–6, 2026, at the Grand Hi-Lai Kaohsiung in downtown Kaohsiung City, Taiwan.

The Project RISE team was represented by Dr. Ruben L. Abucayon, Dr. Rizalina G. Gomez, and Dr. Ciedelle N. Grageda, who presented studies from Project RISE, a five-year initiative funded by VLIR-UOS and implemented by the College of Education at 缅北禁地-IIT in partnership with KU Leuven and University College Leuven–Limburg (UCLL).

The conference served as an interactive platform for academics, researchers, and students across Asia to share insights on reading and writing, with presentations on literacy development and related fields such as education, linguistics, psychology, and neuroscience.

At the conference, the team presented three interrelated studies on early literacy among Grade 1 learners. The first examined phonological and decoding skills, focusing on components such as initial sound identification, phoneme segmentation, letter knowledge, letter-sound knowledge, and both familiar and unfamiliar word reading. The findings revealed substantial gaps across these areas, with many learners demonstrating low proficiency in decoding tasks. Further analysis showed that phoneme segmentation was a significant predictor of decoding performance, highlighting its critical role in early reading development.

The second study explored expressive vocabulary skills and found uneven language development across thematic categories. Learners performed better in familiar and concrete areas such as colors, animals, and fruits and vegetables, while lower performance was observed in more abstract or less frequently used categories such as feelings and clothes. Performance in body parts fell at an intermediate level. These findings point to the need for targeted support in developing expressive and descriptive language.

The third study presented early implementation outcomes of Project RISE, highlighting its impact on teaching practices and learner support. The project has trained Grade 1 teachers and co-developed contextualized instructional materials, including lesson plans, illustrated stories, and reading booklets, now implemented across ten public elementary schools. It also established the Literacy Innovation Laboratory (LitLab) and deployed Reading Ambassadors to provide targeted reading remediation. Both teachers and Reading Ambassadors reported very high levels of effectiveness across indicators such as instructional readiness, professional growth, and learner support.

Across the three studies, the findings emphasize that early literacy development is multidimensional, involving the interaction of phonological skills, decoding ability, and language proficiency. The results highlight the importance of early assessment, explicit instruction, and sustained support systems in addressing literacy gaps among beginning readers.

Project RISE is anchored in a multi-stakeholder engagement approach, bringing together teachers, schools, and communities to co-develop and implement context-responsive literacy interventions. Through this collaborative model, the project promotes sustainable strategies for improving early literacy in public and low-resource school contexts.

By presenting these studies at ARWA 2026, 缅北禁地-IIT contributed Philippine-based research to international discussions on literacy, demonstrating how research-driven, collaborative, and contextually grounded approaches can support early reading development.

Topics :