Skimming and scanning

What and why?

Skimming and scanning are two different READING skills. Skimming means looking at a text or chapter quickly in order to have a general idea of the contents. Scanning means looking at a text to find some particular information. For example, we skim through a report to have a rough idea of what it says but we scan a page of the telephone directory to find a particular name or number. Skimming requires a greater degree of reading and word recognition skills as it involves a more thorough understanding of the text. Scanning to find a particular piece of information can be achieved successfully by relatively poor readers and is therefore a very satisfying achievement for those daunted by texts in a foreign language. As the students become more confident of their reading ability in the mother tongue and in English, they will learn how to approach texts with different reading skills depending on the purpose of the text and the purpose they have for reading it. The more students are encouraged to approach a text by first using skimming or scanning techniques, the sooner they begin to realise that they do not have to read and understand every word of a text. Slow readers are 'text-bounded', that is, they think that they have to work laboriously through every word in order to understand a text.

Practical ideas

• Both skimming and scanning are practised in many exercises in the Topic and Language Units.
• Use scanning techniques at the beginning of the year to familiarise students with the Student's Book. The task can be a race between four teams in the class. For example, with CEWw 1 you could ask them to turn to the Wordlist/Index and to find the word which is after 'airport'. The first person to find it gets a point for the team. Then ask them to find a word which is above 'film', then three below another word and on the same line in another column. Then ask them to look at the map at the beginning of the book and to find a Unit about 'Poems', for example, or other titles of Themes or Units.
• It is useful to explain the difference between skimming and scanning to the students (give them the example of a telephone directory and a chapter of a History/Science textbook).
• Before the students read a text, ask them whether they think the task requires them to skim or to scan the text.
• Students often like having races. Occasionally ask students to see who can find the information in a text first.
• Allow time for students to read the texts quietly to themselves in class to practise their own technique. Texts do not need to be read out loud round the class.
• Encourage students to practise skimming and scanning when they read in their mother tongue.
• Students can write 'skim' and 'scan' questions for other students at the beginning of each Theme or Topic and Language Unit.