Skimming and Scanning
Reading Comprehension
Skills
Akash Thahrani
Skimming and scanning are especially valuable when there is
only one item of information that you need to find from a
particular passage.
Skimming and scanning are very
rapid reading methods in which
you glance at a passage to find
specific information. These
reading methods make it easier
for you to grasp large amounts
of material, especially when
you're previewing. They are also
useful when you don't need to
know every word.
Akash Thahrani
Skimming is used to quickly gather the most important
information or ‘gist’. It’s not essential to understand each
word when you are skimming.
Run your eyes over the text, noting important information.
Use skimming to quickly get up to speed on a current business
situation.
Akash Thahrani
Examples of Skimming:
The Newspaper – to quickly get the
general news of the day
Magazines – to quickly discover which
articles you would like to read in more
detail
Business and Travel Brochures – to
quickly get informed
Akash Thahrani
How to Skim?
Working quickly…
1. Read the title if there is one.
2. Read the introduction or the first paragraph if there is one.
3. Read the first sentence of every other paragraph.
4. Notice any pictures, charts, or graphs.
5. Notice any italicized or boldface words or phrases.
6. Read the summary or last paragraph if there is one.
Akash Thahrani
Skim and scan this paragraph in 30 seconds
When you skim and scan, you need to cover
everything, even titles, subtitles, side features, and
visuals. That bit of information you need may not be
tidily packaged in a paragraph, so you need to check
the entire page--not just the main body of the text,
there are also many visual clues that help you to
find information. Heads and subheads break up the
text and identify the content of each part. Where
key terms are introduced and defined, they appear
in boldface type. Graphs and charts have titles
and/or captions that tell you what they are about.
These clues will help you to find information. . . but
only if you use them.
Akash Thahrani
In other words, when you are skimming
and scanning…
1. Cover everything
2. Check entire page
3. Notice visual clues
4. Notice graphs, charts, titles,
captions
Akash Thahrani
Scanning is a reading technique to be used when you want
to find specific information quickly. In scanning you have a
question in your mind and you read a passage only to find
the answer, ignoring unrelated information.
Examples of Scanning:
A google search list on the internet.
A bus / airplane schedule
A conference guide
A graph
Akash Thahrani
How to scan
1. State the specific information you are looking for.
1. Try to anticipate how the answer will appear and what
clues you might use to help you locate the answer. For
example, if you were looking for a certain date, you
would quickly read the paragraph looking only for
numbers.
1. Use headings and any other aids that will help you
identify which sections might contain the information you
are looking for.
1. Selectively read and skip through sections of the passage.
Akash Thahrani
Scanning Practice
Here is some information you are looking for on
the BC Hydro website.
Read the questions and then on the next slide ,
find the answers, as quickly as possible:
1. Who is handling inquiries?
2. What is the after hours media line?
3. What is a good example of BC Hydro Clean
Energy Project?
Akash Thahrani
Akash Thahrani
Scanning answers
Remember it’s important to quickly find the information you need. You don’t need to understand every word, or read
every word. Your eyes should quickly scan the document for the information you seek.
Akash Thahrani
Conclusion
Skimming and scanning is used when reading all
types of documents.
We skim to get the idea of what a document is
about and typically skim all documents before we
actually begin to read.
As we skim, we…
think about the topic
think about what we already know about the topic
start to guess or anticipate the details we are going to
read about.
We scan for specific information.
We work quickly when we skim and scan.
Akash Thahrani
