USAID Reading MATTERS Conceptual Framework
USAID’s Reading MATTERS (Mentors, Administrators, Teachers, Texts, Extra Practice, Regular Assessment, Standards) Conceptual Framework highlights seven components that evidence shows are critical to fostering reading acquisition for all. The framework situates these components within a larger system that, in ideal circumstances, is driven by host-country capacity and commitment, calibrated by research and adaptation, and supported by a constellation of factors that determine a child’s well-being, such that strong reading outcomes are consistently achieved. Each component of the framework encompasses multiple reading-specific sub-factors, all of which must be considered based on context and must be coordinated in a coherent fashion for students to learn to read.
This framework incorporates, and expands upon, the elements of the five Ts framework (Time, Texts, Tongue, Teaching, and Testing) that USAID used as an organizing principle for agency investments in early grade reading from 2011 to 2018. The dynamic relationship between the seven education-specific components and the six facets of child well-being is at the heart of increasing students’ motivation to learn to read. The framework sets out, for each component and subfactor, an evidence-based description of the ideal conditions that should prevail under that component or sub-factor in order to foster the most widespread progress toward literacy for those beginning to learn to read.