An Observational Study of Student Reading Engagement During UFLI Intensive Intervention

Student engagement during reading instruction, including during small group and individualized intensive reading instruction, is critical for student success. If students are not engaged with instruction, they are not learning. This study examined student reading engagement during individualized intensive literacy tutoring in a summer reading program using a direct observational protocol called the Student Reading Engagement Observational Coding System (SREOCS). Twenty in-person individualized tutoring videos, representing eight students nested within eight tutors, were randomly selected. The videos were coded and analyzed using a series of repeated measures within-subject ANOVA. The results suggest that students exhibit high levels of reading engagement during intensive tutoring. However, statistically significant differences were found in student initiation and responding to initial requests across four different tutoring activities. Specifically, student initiation increased, while responding to initial requests decreased significantly during the spelling activity. Increases in student initiation were also found during the auditory drill and blending drill compared to the visual drill. The implications for future research, professional development opportunities, and practitioners' instructional practices to improve student reading engagement are discussed.