Beyond engagement: Why literacy must be about more than test scores

There was a moment during a school visit in Barbados that has stayed with me, since it carries an important lesson related to literacy and student engagement.

I had spent less than an hour working with a group of students using music, rhythm, storytelling, and vocabulary instruction to explore language in a different way. Near the end of the session, a young man who had never volunteered publicly stood up and performed in front of his peers.

His teacher was stunned.

His teacher already knew he had potential. What changed was the level of comfort and confidence the student felt in expressing it publicly.

That moment reminds me of something educators often know instinctively but systems sometimes forget: Engagement is not the destination. Engagement is the doorway.

Too often, conversations about literacy become narrowly focused on scores, benchmarks, interventions, and deficits. While assessment data matters deeply, literacy is ultimately about more than performance metrics. Literacy shapes confidence, identity, communication, belonging, and opportunity.

When students struggle with vocabulary and comprehension, they are not simply struggling academically. In many cases, they are struggling to access the language of school itself. This can often lead to lifelong challenges in navigating and successfully coexisting within society, which is a deeper conversation we will undoubtedly explore more fully another time.

These experiences have also reinforced another lesson that has followed me throughout my career: engagement is most powerful when it exists within a coherent learning experience.

The power of instructional coherence for literacy success

Students do not experience school as a collection of isolated initiatives. They experience it as a connected journey. When vocabulary instruction, reading practice, classroom discussion, writing opportunities, and assessment are aligned toward a common goal, students are more likely to make meaningful connections between what they are learning and why it matters.

Research supports this. Instructional coherence refers to the degree to which curriculum, instruction, assessment, and learning experiences work together in a coordinated way to support learning (Newmann et al., 2001). Studies have found that schools with stronger instructional coherence often demonstrate higher levels of achievement, because students encounter consistent expectations and opportunities to deepen their understanding over time (Polikoff, 2012).

This matters because engagement alone does not guarantee learning. A student may enjoy an activity, remember a song, or participate enthusiastically in a discussion, yet still struggle to develop lasting understanding if those experiences remain disconnected from broader learning goals. Effective literacy instruction requires both engagement and intentionality. Students need opportunities to connect new vocabulary to prior knowledge, apply concepts across contexts, and revisit ideas in ways that strengthen comprehension over time.

In many ways, coherence is what transforms engagement from a momentary experience into lasting learning.

This understanding has shaped much of my work over the past several years. As a former teacher, school administrator, district leader, and now someone who partners with educators across the country, I have become increasingly interested in approaches that help students access language in meaningful and memorable ways.

One example is Flocabulary, a literacy-focused learning platform that uses music, storytelling, and culturally relevant content to engage students in academic vocabulary and comprehension. While many educators initially recognize Flocabulary for its use of hip-hop and student engagement, its true strength lies in its intentionality. Every lesson is designed around specific learning objectives, academic vocabulary, and opportunities for students to build a deeper understanding of concepts across content areas.

The beats get students nodding their heads, while the real victory happens as they begin to grow their vocabulary, strengthen comprehension, and find their voice—much like the student in Barbados.

Why engagement alone is not enough for comprehension

Over the years, my work with Flocabulary has provided a unique vantage point into classrooms, schools, and districts:

• I’ve watched students who rarely participate volunteer to share their thinking.
• I’ve seen struggling readers become increasingly willing to engage with academic content.
• I’ve witnessed students confidently discuss topics ranging from environmental and social sciences to financial literacy, Shakespeare, and the Civil Rights Movement.

Time and again, the most powerful moments weren’t about the music itself. They were about students discovering new ways to connect with language, deepen their understanding of the world, and discover more about themselves.

Student engagement matters. Research consistently shows that motivation, relevance, and active participation positively impact learning outcomes (Ryan & Deci, 2020). Yet engagement without strong instructional practices can become entertainment rather than empowerment.

Students deserve learning experiences that capture their attention while also building durable academic skills. This balance is especially important in literacy instruction, where vocabulary knowledge and comprehension are foundational to success across content areas. Students who possess stronger vocabulary are better equipped to process complex texts, communicate ideas effectively, and engage meaningfully in academic discourse (Quigley, 2018).

For many students—especially those in historically underserved communities—literacy instruction can sometimes feel disconnected from their realities, interests, and lived experiences. When students fail to see themselves reflected in learning, disengagement often follows.

The challenge for educators is not simply getting students excited about learning. The challenge is creating environments where engagement leads to confidence, growth, and deeper understanding.

Connecting literacy to student agency

Recently, while partnering with Compton Unified School District for their annual STEAM Fest event, I had the opportunity to witness this transformation in real time. Students from various cultural and academic backgrounds confidently stepped onto a public stage during a Flocabulary-sponsored rap contest and delivered performances in front of hundreds of educators, families, district leaders, and community members.

The performances explored a wide range of STEAM-related topics, from aerospace and environmental engineering to influential scientists and inventors dating back to Leonardo da Vinci. What stood out to me was not simply students’ willingness to perform—it was also the confidence, ownership, and pride they carried while using language publicly.

That matters because literacy is not limited to worksheets, passages, or assessment scores. Literacy also includes the ability to communicate ideas, express identity, build confidence, and use one’s voice with purpose. When students are given opportunities to connect literacy to creativity, storytelling, rhythm, collaboration, and self-expression, they often begin to see themselves differently as learners.

For some students, that confidence eventually shows up in writing assignments. For others, it appears in classroom participation, presentations, collaboration, or a willingness to take academic risks. In each case, growth extends beyond performance alone as students begin developing agency and a stronger belief in their own abilities.

Literacy as identity, access, and opportunity

Language shapes how students see themselves and how they believe the world sees them.

Long before students demonstrate proficiency on assessments, they are already developing beliefs about whether they belong academically. Literacy experiences can either reinforce confidence or quietly diminish it.

This is why literacy must be viewed as both an academic priority and an equity issue.

Research has long demonstrated the connection between early language exposure, vocabulary development, and long-term academic outcomes (Hart & Risley, 1995). Students who enter school with limited exposure to rich vocabulary often face increasing barriers to comprehension as academic language becomes more complex over time.

Yet students should never be defined solely by what they have not yet mastered.

Many learners possess creativity, oral language strengths, cultural knowledge, problem-solving abilities, and intellectual curiosity that traditional literacy measures may fail to fully capture. When educators widen the lens through which they view students, opportunities for meaningful connection and accelerated growth increase.

Vocabulary, comprehension, and student confidence

Vocabulary instruction sometimes takes the form of isolated word memorization, but purposeful vocabulary development can profoundly foster comprehension, communication, and confidence.

Students cannot fully engage with what they cannot fully access.

As vocabulary knowledge grows, students become more capable of interpreting increasingly complex texts, participating in classroom discussions, and expressing their ideas with clarity. This relationship between vocabulary and comprehension becomes especially critical as students move into upper elementary, middle, and secondary grades, where academic language demands increase significantly.

This is one reason that literacy ecosystems matter. Students benefit most when vocabulary instruction, reading practice, speaking opportunities, writing tasks, and comprehension support all work together rather than functioning as isolated instructional experiences. Coherent literacy systems allow students multiple opportunities to interact with language in meaningful and memorable ways.

This aligns with John Hattie’s (2023) synthesis of decades of educational research, which reminds us that impactful learning is not the result of isolated activities but of intentional teaching practices that help students connect ideas, receive meaningful feedback, and progressively deepen their understanding. In other words, engagement may open the door, but intentional instruction is what helps students walk through it.

Tools such as Flocabulary, myON, Accelerated Reader, and Nearpod can support this type of connected learning experience by combining engagement, academic vocabulary, reading practice, creativity, and formative assessment into a more unified instructional approach.

The importance of culturally responsive literacy practices

The confidence I witnessed in Barbados and Compton did not emerge simply because students learned new words. It emerged because they were given meaningful opportunities to use language in ways that felt relevant, authentic, and connected to who they were. That distinction points to an important consideration for educators: how we teach literacy matters just as much as what we teach.

Culturally responsive teaching is not about lowering expectations. It is about increasing access.

Geneva Gay (2018) described culturally responsive teaching as using students’ cultural knowledge, experiences, and frames of reference to make learning more relevant and effective. Similarly, Paris and Alim (2017) emphasized the importance of sustaining students’ cultural and linguistic identities within educational spaces rather than asking students to disconnect from them to succeed academically.

For educators, this means literacy instruction should create opportunities for students to connect language to identity, expression, storytelling, and community. It also means recognizing that rigor and relevance are not opposing forces.

Students can engage deeply with challenging academic content while also seeing their voices, experiences, and cultures reflected in the learning process. Across classrooms nationwide, educators are increasingly discovering that when students feel seen, heard, and valued, participation and perseverance often increase alongside achievement.

Creating coherent literacy experiences for all students

One of the greatest challenges facing schools today is not a shortage of tools or initiatives. It is fragmentation. Students frequently experience literacy instruction in disconnected pieces:

• Vocabulary in one place;
• Reading intervention somewhere else;
• Assessment in another system;
• Engagement separated from rigor; and
• Instructional resources competing rather than aligning.

When learning feels fragmented, students can struggle to connect purpose to practice.

Coherent instructional systems help educators bridge these gaps by aligning assessment, instruction, intervention, engagement, and student voice into a more connected experience. Within a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS), this coherence becomes even more essential because student needs extend beyond isolated test scores or intervention labels.

Educators need opportunities to see the whole child. This includes understanding not only where students are performing academically, but also how they engage, communicate, collaborate, and respond to learning experiences.

When literacy instruction becomes more coherent, culturally responsive, and student-centered, classrooms begin to shift. Students who once appeared disengaged begin participating. Students who felt invisible begin using their voices. Students who doubted their abilities begin seeing themselves differently.

Because literacy is not simply about reading words on a page. It is about helping students discover the power within their own voices.

References

Gay, G. (2018). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. 3rd ed. New York: Teachers College Press.

Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Philadelphia: Brookes Publishing.

Hattie, J. (2023). Visible learning: The sequel. New York: Routledge.

Newmann, F. M., Smith, B., Allensworth, E., & Bryk, A. S. (2001). Instructional program coherence: What it is and why it should guide school improvement policy. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23(4), 297–321.

Paris, D., & Alim, H. S. (2017). Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice in a changing world. New York: Teachers College Press.

Polikoff, M. S. (2012). Instructional alignment under No Child Left Behind. American Journal of Education, 118(3), 341–368.

Quigley, A. (2018). Closing the vocabulary gap. New York: Routledge.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2020). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination theory perspective: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 61, 101860.