Improving Reading Skills: Teaching Students to Skim and Scan
compiled by George Staten
January 30, 2007
Effective readers know how to vary their attention level as they
read. Depending on the relevance of the material and the purpose
for reading, good readers vacillate between the following attention
levels:
Active Reading: Full, careful reading of the text, seeking full
comprehension, re-reading, looking for relationships between
ideas.
Skimming: Reading to determine the overall gist or sense of a text,
noting available information without as much concern about grasping
specific facts and details.
Scanning: Looking over a page to find specific information such as
a fact or definition.
Inexperienced readers assume they must always sustain active
reading throughout the whole text. They are sometimes unaware of
the strategies of skimming and scanning, or are unsure how to
employ them. These students can waste valuable study time
struggling through irrelevant material. They benefit from learning
to vary attention levels as well as from encouragement that it is
not cheating to do so, but rather a valuable reading skill.
How to skim:
- Have research questions or categories in mind before
beginning.
- Don't read word for word; group words into clusters.
- Access clues such as headings, illustrations, charts, captions,
and bold type.
- Let your eyes travel over the page, looking for key words or
phrases.
- Read first and last sentences of paragraphs. First sentences
state the topic of the paragraph. Last sentences conclude ideas and
lead to the next paragraph.
- Sweep the page more than once, looking for clues and
patterns.
How to scan:
-Identify the specific information needed before beginning. For
example, "I need to know what an apothecary is. "
-Let your eyes travel the page, grouping words into clusters, until
you see what you are looking for.