How
to...
teach
skimming and
scanning
This booklet relates to elements
1, 7 and 8 of the Basic Skills
Quality Mark for Secondary Schools
Skimming and scanning are methods of
reading which are used for finding
information from non-fiction texts.
They are, therefore, extremely useful
study skills right across the curriculum.
Pupils who can skim and scan a text
are already well equipped to face a
range of reading tasks, up to and
including exams.
Setting up
Each individual school should decide how best to deliver skimming and scanning
techniques to pupils.This could be:
•
as part of a study skills programme delivered through Personal and Social
Education;
•
•
through a library skills programme;
•
as part of an induction programme to secondary education taught through
the core subjects in Year 7;
in the run up to all internal and external examinations, e.g. SATs, GCSEs.
The teaching of skimming and scanning skills should be a central part of a whole
school policy on language across the curriculum.
Who should be involved
•
The process should initially be taught to all pupils as part of their induction
into secondary education.
•
Each curriculum team should explicitly teach and display an agreed list of keywords for their subject that are used as the ‘trigger’ words for skimming and
scanning work.
•
Encourage every teacher to build skimming and scanning exercises into their
schemes of work, so that pupils receive regular practice across the
curriculum.
Identification of pupils
All pupils should be taught skimming and scanning skills whatever their ability.
Able pupils
can improve their independent research skills by being able
to access information quickly and accurately.
Average ability can improve their ability to identify keywords and to
pupils
absorb the general tone or feel of a piece of writing, main
theme or ideas of a piece of writing. This helps them to
identify the central theme, argument or idea.
Less able pupils who do not read fluently are often already quite practised
at skimming and scanning – in search of words they can
already read! Teachers can build upon this ability by
showing them how to use this strategy to look for specific
words or information.
Getting the gist!
Skimming is a method of rapid reading to absorb the overall theme, tone or general
meaning of a text. It is often used as a precursor to a more detailed search for
specific information and is therefore mostly used for non-fiction texts. Skimming
means allowing the eye to move rapidly across each line of text, ignoring
punctuation and small words, such as ‘in’,‘the’ etc., but allowing the eye to linger over,
and take in the larger words and phrases which are related to the theme of the text.
teach
skimming
skills
Good skimmers:
•
•
•
speak keywords and phrases aloud as they encounter them in the text;
develop a feel for the tone or atmosphere of a piece of writing;
recognise keywords when they are repeated in the text.
1. Which of the crimes would no longer be considered offences today?
2. Which of the crimes are still offences but are now very rare?
TWENTY-ONE days’ hard
labour has been imposed on
a boy, at Westminster, for
playing pitch-and-toss on
Gazette, October 4, 1884
Sunday.
Highway Robbers
T
HE following executions have taken
place for highway robbery: Richard
Randall and John Tubbs, on March 27,
1818; G. Wingfield, March 27, 1829; and
William Stephenson, March 22, 1833.
Lincolnshire in the News, Feb 22, 1999
1855
S
IX young boys were brought before Grantham magistrates on
February 1 charged with snowballing. The boys were severely
reprimanded and threatened with a month on the treadmill should
they be caught snowballing again.
Strategies
Give pupils a simple but respectable(!) page of a tabloid newspaper. The page
should contain a variety of different articles. Ask pupils to find a specific topic
contained on the page. Point out that they can check headlines, sub-headings and
photos in order to help this process.
This could be followed up by giving them an unfamiliar book, and without reading
it, get pupils to find facts by:
•
checking the contents page for specific chapters which should contain the
information they are looking for;
•
•
reading the blurb on the inside flap/or the back cover summaries;
checking if a summary is given at the beginning or end of each chapter.
Most of us have and use skimming skills without realising it. However, it does need
to be pointed out to students.
Eye to idea…
The purpose of scanning is to be able to locate a specific detail such as a key idea,
word, date, name, or time in a piece of text. Like skimming, it involves rapid
movement of the eye across the page whilst skipping most of the text but keeping
the specific detail which is required at the conscious level.
Good scanners:
teach
scanning
skills
•
repeat the required word or phrase verbally or non verbally to themselves
whilst they are searching the text;
•
look for key information or indications, e.g.
– capital letters to indicate names, etc.
– look for numbers if they are searching for a date
– check sub-headings for clues;
•
recognise keywords in the task and look for where they are repeated in the
text or title;
•
colour match symbols, e.g. map reading where roads are red, rivers are blue,
railways are black.
Strategies
Pupils only become good scanners if they are given regular or frequent practice.
A good ten minute exercise for the start or end of a lesson might be to give the
pupils a text of approximately 250 words containing a mixture of statistics, facts
and opinions based on a given theme (it could be the theme of the lesson). Allow
them no more than two minutes reading time for pupils to highlight or underline
in colour:
• all the statistics (e.g. dates);
•
•
all the keywords related to your chosen theme, e.g.Victorian London;
the answer to one specific question, e.g. what is photosynthesis?
In an age when we are bombarded by information at an ever-increasing rate,
the pupil who can quickly locate what is essential knowledge is already ahead
of the field!
The Basic Skills Agency
Commonwealth House,
1–19 New Oxford Street,
London WC1A 1NU
Tel: 020 7405 4017 • Fax: 020 7440 7770
e-mail: walesenquiries@basic-skills.co.uk
www.basic-skills-wales.org
Janet Winfield
Advanced Skills Teacher, Literacy Coordinator, Frome Community College
Sue Spencer
Manager of Learning Support, Frome Community College