5 Ways to Boost Reading Engagement in the Classroom: Insights from Dr. Ernest Morrell

As educators, we know the importance of keeping students continuously engaged in learning: it can improve student motivation, enhance the effectiveness of our teaching, and increase overall academic achievement.

At the same time, we also know that today's classrooms can come with some unique challenges that may increase the chances of students becoming disengaged from learning. Unfortunately, when students become disengaged from learning, the consequences can be far-reaching, impacting not only their academic performance but also their long-term opportunities and social-emotional well-being.

When it comes to literacy, what steps can we take to increase student engagement?

5 Insights to Increase Literacy Engagement in the Classroom

In this blog post, Savvas author Dr. Ernest Morrell, director of the Center for Literacy Education at the University of Notre Dame, shares his thoughts on what causes students to disengage from learning and provides five actionable ways educators can impact student engagement in literacy. With over 30 years of experience, Dr. Morrell offers unique insights on what captivates students and how to make literacy learning more meaningful.

What Causes Disengagement?

Before we get into how to engage students, Dr. Morrell asks us to think about what disengages students.

He believes that students who struggle with academic concepts and lack confidence or fail to see the relevance of content taught in the classroom are more likely to disengage from their learning. He also cites a lack of relevant, authentic texts that allow students to connect and collaborate with both their peers and the world they live in.

So, what can we do to boost confidence in students and provide more relevance to keep them engaged? Here are five ideas to get started.

Insight 1: Build Confidence by Helping Students See Their Progress

Dr. Morrell believes that students become more engaged when they have confidence in their literacy abilities. Teachers can help build that confidence by coaching students to set and monitor their own goals.

“If students see themselves getting better, I don’t think engagement is going to be a problem,” he said.

Dr. Morrell recommends coupling direct, explicit, and systematic instruction, aligned with the Science of Reading, with goal setting and progress monitoring.

It’s important to note that goal setting without the right support could be less effective. You can provide that support by allowing students to set their own goals and participate in self-evaluation with reflection. Another idea for effective goal setting is encouraging the use of the SMART goal framework.

The SMART goals framework is a great way to help students keep their goals focused, realistic, and achievable in a relatively short time. When creating goals for the year, encourage students to make sure they are: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.

In addition to students setting their own goals, teachers can help ensure students remain engaged in their learning by utilizing responsive teaching strategies to provide targeted instruction for struggling students with skills gaps.

Appropriate use of assessment, goal setting, and progress monitoring can help to improve student literacy achievement and, in turn, positively impact student confidence and engagement.

Insight 2: Make Instruction Relevant

To foster engagement with literacy, it is important to help students feel connected to the texts used in instruction. When students feel connected by reading about topics that relate to their own experiences, goals, and interests, the instruction feels more relevant to their own lives.

Dr. Morrell recommends that teachers help students understand that the texts they read are just the beginning of a conversation—not a monologue.

“Texts don’t just speak to students,” he said, adding that students should feel as though they can have a two-way conversation with the texts they read.

He recommends encouraging students to ask questions while they read, such as, What are the biases? How is the text representative of the mainstream ideas of its time? How is it critical? How does it push the envelope?

These types of questions can facilitate not only conversations among students in the classroom but also encourage connection between text and self or text and other kinds of media such as music or film.

In the same way that students are engaged when they are collaborating with peers in thoughtful "conversations", students who have thoughtful conversations with the texts they read will also be engaged in their learning.

You can also ensure that literacy instruction is relevant by selecting authentic text that piques student interest, including digital media text such as news articles, blogs, or multimedia content.

By incorporating a mix of traditional and contemporary texts, students learn to navigate and interpret a range of diverse language structures and points of view while seeing the connection between classroom literacy and real life.

Insight 3: Embrace the Power of Authentic Literature

For Dr. Morrell, authentic literature is the heart of literacy engagement. While foundational skills are essential, they should ultimately serve the goal of giving students access to meaningful, high-quality texts.

He emphasizes that foundational skills like phonics should be seen as a gateway to powerful, independent reading, not an endpoint.

“You're learning about phonemic awareness, or you're learning about phonics or fluency because it's going to help you to read powerful literature. It's going to help you to engage with the world,” Dr. Morrell stresses.

So, it is not just the ability to fluently decode literature that makes it engaging; it is the ability to comprehend the text and gain knowledge that is powerful and brings joy.

“To be able to read something and understand that makes you an independent learner.”

Authentic Text for Emergent Readers

Even before students have mastered their phonics skills, teachers can still bring the joy of authentic texts to emergent readers through interactive read-alouds. In this practice, teachers read aloud a text to students that is higher than their independent reading level and then interactive by discussing what they read.

Interactive read-alouds have many benefits. For example, reading aloud using authentic literature can build student background knowledge and vocabulary, encourage discussion and collaboration among students, and provide opportunities for a teacher to scaffold complex syntax or ideas.

Importantly, interactive read-alouds also allow teachers to model finding pleasure in reading — a key piece of literacy engagement.

Insight 4: Combine Evidence-Based Practices with Fun

Dr. Morrell advocates for administrators and coaches to not only partner with teachers in diving into the Science of Reading and the evidence that supports best literacy practices, but also to explore ways to keep those practices fun and engaging for students.

At the foundational level, to keep students engaged with direct, explicit instruction, he suggests treating literacy skills like a sport, where practicing specific skills prepares students for the “game” of real reading.

Students understand that practice leads to improvement, just as in sports. “Kids should still be laughing, they should be competing, they should feel rewarded, and there should be big payoffs for those steps along the way,” he says.

One way to do this is to “gamify” evidence-based literacy instruction. Effective gamification integrates evidence-based reading components, such as phonemic awareness, phonics, etc., into engaging activities. These can be incorporated into the practice piece to help students become fluent, automatic, and engaged readers.

Try these 50 fun phonics activities to engage your students in literacy learning!

Insight 5: Keep the Big Picture in Mind

Finally, Dr. Morrell highlights the importance of the Science of Reading’s collective mission: making every student a powerful reader.

Evidence-based foundational skills instruction is essential, but we must remember that these skills serve a higher purpose: they are simply building blocks that help students read fluently, comprehend deeply, and provide a pathway to knowledge.

By keeping this bigger picture in mind, teachers can foster a learning environment focused on incremental but goal-oriented learning. The collective goal is not only skill acquisition but the development of powerful readers who can use their abilities to access and impact the world around them.

Boost Literacy Engagement Through Evidence-Based Instruction and Relevant, Authentic Texts

Dr. Morrell’s insights remind us that boosting literacy engagement in the classroom is about helping students meet reading goals through evidence-based instruction, combined with content that resonates with their experiences, interests, and goals. By incorporating diverse, relevant, authentic texts into these learning experiences, we can promote not only student discussion and collaboration but overall engagement in the classroom.