Purpose
Skimming, scanning and using key words are strategies that assist readers to read more efficiently. They allow students to move through an informative text to discover its main points.
Teaching Points
Follow these steps in sequence:
- Establish a purpose for students to read an informative text – for example:
- To skim a text to get an overall picture
- To scan a text in order to find specific information
- To find key words in a text. (Key words are generally the nouns or verbs which are the vital words to interpreting and comprehending the meaning of a text.)
- Have all students quickly skim copies of the same text and make written or oral predictions about each section of the text. Students discuss their predictions, then read the text and talk about what they have read in relation to their earlier predictions.
- Have students again look into the text to find more specific details. Focus students on what they are actually scanning for and what aspects of the text will assist them. Have them consider title, headings, table of contents, index, glossary, pictures, diagrams and key words.
- Teacher/students discuss the purpose and role played by key words in a text. Key words usually give information about how, why, when, where, who and what.
- Together teacher and class begin to jointly identify key words in a text, sentence by sentence. Next, students in pairs continue to locate the key words, explaining the reasons for their selections.
- Students individually, with partners or in groupings work on a text and a set of questions with answers that can be found directly from the text. Students read each question, find the key word in the question and then scan the text to locate the key word in the text so the question can be answered.
More information
Creenaune, T & Rowles, L (1996) What’s your purpose? Reading strategies for non-fiction texts. Primary English Teaching Association, Newtown.