Reading is anchored in a formative history that dates back to the advent of symbolic representation dating back over 4,000 years—used as a vehicle for records and the pursuit of negotiations, through print and its antecedents such as tokens used for trade and ceremony (a practice that goes back perhaps over 150,000 years). The significance of these systems (as records of commercial transactions, legal negotiationg, artistic expressions, everyday communications (letters, notes, lists), historical events, and spiritual guidance) is evidenced by documentation of the philosophic debates and literary works of antiquity, the creation of the first libraries (e.g., Alexandria, 300 B.C.), and eventually the first universities (e.g., University of Bologna, 1088 A.D., and the University of Timbuktu, circa 1100 A.D.). Print itself became the vehicle for inscribing rituals and laws, designating rights of ownership, liberties, and citizenship. At the same time, the notion of reading texts became an object of study among prominent philosophers, who debated whether texts were tools of subjugation or liberation. For instance, as captured in Plato’s Meno, Socrates related his concern for displacement of a dialectic with written text. Philosophers thus debated the merits of oral and written renditions and intended meanings among scholars, priests, and their disciples. ...