Different Reading Techniques

You need to have the following skills

 Skimming – this is reading an article quickly so you can get the gist or basic meaning of
the article
 Scanning – looking for specific information related to the questions
 Close reading– once you know what is important – what you need to know to answer a
question – you will focus and read carefully on that section
So pay attention to the following details from any reading source.

Skimming
1. What is the title given to the article?
2. Where was this article sourced from?
3. What do you think the article could be about from the title?
4. Read quickly and don’t pay too much attention to difficult sections or vocabulary.

Scanning
1. List the names of: and what is said about them in the article
2. People
3. Organisations
4. Countries/Cities or other places
5. Numbers
6. Anything else of importance that you can find. Pay attention to section topics.

Close/Intensive Reading
1. Once you know the main idea, the section topics, etc, you can read your questions and
look for answers.
2. Look for synonyms or paraphrasing. Often the question will not use the exact same word
or wording as the text.
3. Watch out for implied meanings. Just because you know something to be true, doesn’t
mean it is true according to the text. Sometimes it is Not Given.
Reading strategies: scanning, skimming and intensive reading

You will probably be aware that you are already skilled in using different reading strategies for different purposes in
your daily life. You may feel less confident about doing this in your academic studies: maybe you read everything
too thoroughly. Or perhaps you have become too confident and have discovered from the feedback from your tutor
or supervisor that you do not read key texts thoroughly enough. It is important to match your reading strategy to the
reading purpose.

Consider whether you ever read for these purposes and what reading strategy you tend to use:

Reading purpose Example from daily life Example from academic work

1. look for specific information

when you know how to
· look for a particular
locate it by following a · look up the meaning of a
reference in a reference
procedure word in a dictionary
list of an article

2. search for specific · check particular details

· check what research
information that may be of an incident reported
methods the authors of a
somewhere a text in a newspaper article
research report article
used
3. look quickly through a text to
see what it is about before · see whether a magazine · see whether an academic
deciding to read it article will be worth article is going to be
reading relevant for your task

4. read quickly through a text to · read a front-line text

gain an overview of its which is relevant but not
· read through a new
content central to your task
recipe

5. read through an easy text

where it is not important to
· read a textbook chapter to
remember all that you’ve
· read a novel revise a subject that you
read
know well

· read a front-line text

6. read a text thoroughly to · read the instructions for whose content is central
understand and remember booking and paying for to your task
what you’ve read a journey online
You may find it useful to think in terms of three main reading strategies:

· scanning - looking through a text to find keywords and phrases that are likely to indicate the
specific information that you are seeking, then reading just this piece of the text (situations 1
and 2 above)

· skimming - reading just those parts of a text that are most likely to indicate what the authors
are talking about at different points in order to gain an overview of the content (situations 3
and 4)

· intensive reading - reading through every word of a text from beginning to end (situations 5
and 6)

For many reading purposes in academic work you may have noticed that you use more than one
strategy in sequence. For a particular text that turns out to be centrally important for your reading
purpose, the sequence might be:

· scan the title and abstract to see whether the text is likely to be at all relevant

· scan through parts of the content to see whether particular details in the text confirm that it
will be relevant

· skim the text to gain an overview of its content and confirm how centrally relevant it is

· intensively read the whole text since it clearly is centrally relevant, so as to understand and
evaluate its content in depth

A secret of efficient reading, that will soon become automatic if you consciously do it for every
text, is to check how well the reading strategy you are going to use next fits your reading
purpose.

· Check your reading purpose and then use scanning, skimming or intensive reading - either on
their own or in sequence - as required to achieve this purpose.

There are many textbooks and websites that offer general guidance on reading strategies. Some
include practical exercises to help you improve your skills. If search with your website browser
using keywords such as ‘skim read’ or ‘scan skim’ will lead you to plenty of sites.
Different Reading Techniques And
When To Use Them
by Karl McDonald | Aug 23, 2012 | Articles

One of the first things you learn about teaching is that there are different reading
techniques and the students should be aware of which technique is most suited,
depending on the reading task required by the text or by their teacher.
Training students to know the different reading techniques and when to use them
is very important, especially under exam conditions when time constraints come
into play and students need to have faster reading, learning and memory
skills.
The four main types of reading techniques are the
following:
 Skimming
 Scanning
 Intensive
 Extensive
Skimming
Skimming is sometimes referred to as gist reading where you’re trying to glance
over the material to grasp the main idea.
The way you do this is to read the first and last paragraph and check for any dark
headings.
Skimming may help in order to know what the text is about at its most basic level.
You might typically do this with a magazine or newspaper and would help you
mentally and quickly shortlist those articles which you might consider for a
deeper read.
You might typically skim to search for a name in a telephone directory.
You can reach a speed count of even 700 words per minute if you train yourself
well in this particular method. There are unique courses with speed reading
techniques that you won’t find elsewhere online that will show you how to
use both traditional and hi-tech speed reading methods.
Skimming Saves You Time
Skimming will certainly save you a lot of time as you grasp the main idea of
whatever you are reading, but do not expect your comprehension to be high
during the process.
However, skimming is useful when your goal is to preview the text to get a better
idea of what it’s about. It will help prepare you for deeper learning.
As learning expert and author Pat Wyman says in her online course, Total
Recall Learning™ for Students skimming is a terrific idea to get an overview
and mental picture in your mind which will help improve your memory.
This strategy makes it much easier to recall what you’re about to read.
1. Take a look at the table of contents first.
2. Review the subheadings in each chapter
3. Quicky read the first paragrph in that section
4. Check out anything in your text that is in bold or italics
5. If there is a chapter summary, now is a good time read it over.
This completely prepares your brain to have an overview of what this chapter is
about.
You can then go on to use scanning to find specific important ideas.
Scanning
Picture yourself visiting a historical city, guide book in hand.
You would most probably just scan the guide book to see which site you might
want to visit.
Scanning involves getting your eyes to quickly scuttle across sentence and is
used to get just a simple piece of information. You’ll be searching for specific
words or phrases that will give you more information and answer questions you
may have.
Interestingly, research has concluded that reading off a computer screen actually
inhibits the pathways to effective scanning and thus, reading of paper is far more
conducive to speedy comprehension of texts.
Something students sometimes do not give enough importance to is illustrations.
These should be included in your scanning. Pay special attention to the
introduction and the conclusion.
Intensive Reading
You need to have your aims clear in mind when undertaking intensive reading.
Remember this is going to be far more time consuming than scanning or
skimming.
If you need to list the chronology of events in a long passage, you will need to
read it intensively.
This type of reading has indeed beneficial to language learners as it helps them
understand vocabulary by deducing the meaning of words in context.
It moreover, helps with retention of information for long periods of time and
knowledge resulting from intensive reading persists in your long term memory.
This is one reason why reading huge amounts of information just before an exam
does not work very well.
Students tend to do this, and they undertake neither type of reading process
effectively, especially neglecting intensive reading.
They may remember the answers in an exam but will likely forget everything
soon afterwards.
Extensive reading
Extensive reading involves reading for pleasure.
Because there is an element of enjoyment in extensive reading it is unlikely that
students will undertake extensive reading of a text they do not like.
It also requires a fluid decoding and assimilation of the text and content in front of
you.
If the text is difficult and you stop every few minutes to figure out what is being
said or to look up new words in the dictionary, you are breaking your
concentration and diverting your thoughts.
Is the ability to learn and assimilate information
also genetic?
It is not uncommon for people to associate intelligent or bright kids with their
equally intelligent parents.
Often children of parents who have a profession appear to be more intelligent.
However, it is important to note first and foremost, that academic intelligence is
only one form of intelligence and even a university professor who scores high on
academic intelligence, might be the most impractical person, finding it difficult to
pragmatically solve problems to simple everyday tasks.
The notion of intelligence is an extremely complex and diverse one and to pin it
into just a single word means whipping out the multitude of connotations and
meanings that it actually embodies.
Scientists have found no plausible relationship between our genes and our ability
to learn or our intelligence.
There is no genetic DNA test that can predict intelligence because intelligence is
due to your environment. It is likely that children with parents who exercise a
profession appear more intelligent because their parents directly or directly
encourage it.
Likely, it is also evident that parents who neglect their children and do not
enforce their schooling commitments (doing their homework, study periods etc)
will perform less well in school and appear “less intelligent”.
Again, it is evident why children who have had no opportunity for schooling might
be considered anything but “intelligent”.
Use these tips for skimming and scanning to help enhance all your reading and
especially when you are studying for an exam.