Do You Hear Voices? A Study of the Symbolic Reading Inventory

In an effort to make reading more visible and find out what goes on in the minds of adolescent readers, the author led a group of seventh‐grade students in creating Symbolic Reading Inventories. The students created “snapshot” scenes from the books they were reading and placed themselves, as readers, in or around the picture. Reading is a complex puzzle made up of myriad pieces, some that fall easily into place and others that struggle to find some kind of fit. To make matters even more interesting, reading is an invisible process, deeply personal between the reader and the text. In interviewing chosen students, the author found that, in general, they were able to suspend reality and actively place themselves in the created scenes. In particular, the students engaged their imaginations, entering the text as they heard, saw, and felt aspects from chosen scenes. Not only did they bring life to the text, but they also brought their own lives to the text as they were actively engaged in creating meaning. Based on this information, the author encourages educators to provide situations that move our students from the commonplace to the extraordinary.