The study aimed to examine the effect of explicit reading instruction as an approach to Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) framework on EFL students' informational text comprehension and engagement. The explicit reading instruction was implemented with 39 first-year Thai undergraduate students over a 10-week period. It was found that the students improved their reading comprehension and engagement after the implementation. There were also significant differences between the students' pre-test and post-test mean scores. The results from the Reading Engagement Index (REI) and Reading Engagement Checklist indicated positive changes in behavioral, affective and cognitive engagements. However, the social engagement was unnoticeable. Three instructional practices were videotaped and transcribed to analyze students' performances and engagement processes in reading. The study suggests that EFL reading educators should encourage students to involve more in social interactions in order to enable them to see perspectives and to socially construct information from texts. Discussion and implications provided the guidelines for engaging readers in the reading process.