The Engagement Myth

Educators spend a lot of time talking about engagement. In curriculum meetings, professional development sessions, and product reviews, I often hear a version of the question: How can we make this more engaging?

Proposed solutions often involve adding games, increasing student choice, incorporating technology, or creating more interactive experiences. In other words, increasing the entertainment factor. While there is certainly a place for all of those things, maybe we’re actually asking the wrong question.

After years of working with students, teachers, and publishers, I’ve come to believe that engagement is not primarily about entertainment. More often, engagement is the result of success.

When Students Stop Believing They Can Succeed

The students who taught me this lesson were not my highest-achieving readers. They were the students who had experienced years of struggle.

When a student puts their head down, avoids participating in discussions, or claims that books are boring, adults often assume the student lacks motivation. Sometimes that’s true. Often, however, the student has become tired of failing.

Many struggling readers are not disengaged because they don’t care. They are disengaged because they do care and have learned to expect frustration.

Most of my intervention students begin convinced that they are “bad at reading.” They avoid reading aloud. They hesitate to answer questions. They look for ways to escape difficult tasks. Yet something remarkable happens when those same students begin experiencing success.

As they learn how to decode multisyllabic words, recognize word parts, and access grade-level texts more independently, their behavior changes. They begin volunteering to read. They raise their hand to answer questions. They contribute to discussions and begin to take academic risks.

The instruction didn’t suddenly become more entertaining.

The student became more confident. Confidence led to engagement.

Fun vs. Engagement

This isn’t an argument against fun. Students (and teachers!) deserve joyful learning experiences. Games, collaboration, creativity, and choice all have an important place in education. The problem arises when we confuse engagement with entertainment.

Students can enjoy an activity and learn very little from it. Conversely, students can work through a challenging task, experience productive struggle, and leave feeling proud of what they accomplished.

The difference lies in whether students believe success is within reach.

Productive Struggle Creates Growth

In literacy intervention, we spend a great deal of time creating opportunities for productive struggle. We don’t lower expectations, but we do provide the support students need to meet them. We teach decoding strategies, build morphological awareness, model thinking processes, and gradually remove scaffolds as students gain independence.

When students experience challenges without defeat, they grow.

This distinction matters for curriculum developers and publishers as well. If we want students to remain engaged, we must first ensure that they can access the learning. Materials should provide appropriate support, build complexity intentionally, and maintain high expectations without creating unnecessary barriers.

This is especially important for older struggling readers. Upper elementary and secondary students know when materials feel too young for them. They want age-appropriate content, meaningful topics, and opportunities to demonstrate competence. The most engaging materials are often not the flashiest, but those that help students feel capable.

A Better Question

So maybe the question we should be asking is not, How do we make learning more engaging?

Perhaps we should ask, How do we help students experience success?

Because when students feel capable, they participate. When they experience growth, they persist. When they begin to see themselves as successful learners, engagement often follows naturally.

Students don’t need us to compete with entertainment. They need us to help them discover the satisfaction that comes from doing something they once thought they couldn’t do.

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