Theorizing fiction reading engagement during wordless book reading

•Wordless book reading is a useful context for examining emergent reading engagement.•A relational dialogic perspective illuminates relational aspects of reading engagement.•Intersubjectivity and ToM are integral to engaged reading of narrative fiction.

Research on what reading engagement is and how it is achieved often takes the approach of identifying factors that motivate reading, as perceived from outside the reading experience itself. In this study, we examine reading engagement as it occurs with an emergent reader reading a wordless picturebook. Using a dialogic, relational perspective on reading engagement, grounded in transactional theory specific to fictional narrative, we illustrate the ways such a perspective can explain the deeply human experience of engaged fiction reading. Results suggest that intersubjective connections and Theory of Mind (ToM) are integral to a reader's construction of relationships within the fictional world and definitional to engaged reading. In addition, this study builds on the methodological promise of wordless book reading in reading research.