Skimming and scanning

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• havo
• Leerjaar 3

At the end of this lesson...

You will be able to explain the term 'skimming'.

You will be able to explain the term 'scanning'.

You will be able to apply both 'skimming' and 'scanning' when reading texts.

Reading strategies

Together, we'll read 2 texts and answer a couple of questions about them.

It stays quiet when you and the others are reading, so that everyone can concentrate.

Text #1:
Find the word 'enema'. Stand up when you find it.

One hot evening in Padua they carried him up onto the roof and he could look out over the top of the town. There were chimney swifts in the sky. After a while it got dark and the searchlights came out. The others went down and took the bottles with them. He and Luz could hear them below on the balcony. Luz sat on the bed. She was cool and fresh in the hot night.

Luz stayed on night duty for three months. They were glad to let her. When they operated on him she prepared him for the operating table; and they had a joke about friend or enema. He went under the anaesthetic holding tight on to himself so he would not blab about anything during the silly, talky time. After he got on crutches he used to take the temperatures so Luz would not have to get up from the bed. There were only a few patients, and they all knew about it. They all liked Luz. As he walked back along the halls he thought of Luz in his bed.

What did you do to find the word?

When reading text #1, which strategy do think you used?

1. skimming
2. scanning

What do you do when you 'scan' a text?

Text 2:
What is the main topic of this paragraph? Stand up when you know.

We all know what an egg looks like, right? Well, we might know less than we think—bird eggs can be spheres, teardrops, oblong, and anything in between. An interdisciplinary group of scientists may have made progress in cracking the mystery behind how these different shapes emerged.

A new study in Science shows that differences in flight ability might actually start as early as the egg: birds that take to the skies have more elliptical, asymmetrical eggs, while land-bound birds (like ostriches) have more spherical eggs.

When reading text #2, which strategy do think you used?

1. skimming
2. scanning

What do you do when you 'skim' a text?

Reading strategies

We use strategies while reading to make it easier and less time consuming to answer questions about texts.

Skimming and scanning are two reading strategies.

Skimming

You skim a text to look at the title, subheading(s) and pictures  and to quickly read through it to get a general idea of what the text is about.

*What we did at text #2.

Scanning

You scan a text to look for detailed information hidden in the text that you cannot find by skimming the text.

What is 'skimming'?

What is 'scanning'?

Questions?

Homework 05-02

Bring your own English text to class! 

It can be about anything you like. It can part of a book, a short story, an article, a newspaper, a webpage or anything else that has quite a lot of words in it (500 at least). It should be similar in length to the texts that you're used to on READING TESTS. During class we'll work with the texts you brought.