Skimming and
Scanning:
“Skimming refers to the process of reading only main ideas within a passage
to get an overall impression of the content of a reading selection.”
Explanation:
(for understanding)
Skimming refers to looking only for the general or main ideas, and works
best with non-fiction (or factual) material. With skimming, your overall
understanding is reduced because you don’t read everything. You read only what
is important to your purpose. Skimming takes place while reading and allows you
to look for details in addition to the main ideas.
How to skim? Many people think that skimming is a haphazard process placing
the eyes where ever they fall. However, to skim effectively, there has to be a
structure but you don’t read everything. What you read is more important than
what you leave out. So what material do you read and what material do you leave
out?
How to Skim:
* Read the title.
* Read the introduction or the
first paragraph.
* Read the first sentence of
every other paragraph.
* Read any headings and
sub-headings.
* Notice any pictures, charts,
or graphs.
* Notice
any italicized or boldface words or phrases.
* Read the summary or last
paragraph.
“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.”
Explanation:
(for understanding)
Scanning is another useful tool for
speeding up your reading. Unlike skimming, when scanning, you
look only for a specific fact or piece of information without
reading everything. You scan when you look for your favorite show listed in the
cable guide, for your friend’s phone number in a telephone book, and for the
sports scores in the newspaper. For scanning to be successful, you need to
understand how your material is structured as well as comprehend what you read
so you can locate the specific information you need. Scanning also allows you
to find details and other information in a hurry.
How to scan. Because you
already scan many different types of material in your daily life, learning more
details about scanning will be easy. Establishing your purpose, locating the
appropriate material, and knowing how the information is structured before you
start scanning is essential.
The material you scan is typically
arranged in the following ways: alphabetically, chronologically,
non-alphabetically, by category, or textually. Alphabetical information
is arranged in order from A to Z, while chronological information
is arranged in time or numerical order.
How to Scan:
* State the specific
information you are looking for.
* 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.
* Use headings and any other
aids that will help you identify which sections might contain the information
you are looking for.
* Selectively read and skip
through sections of the passage.
Intensive
Reading & Extensive Reading
Ø Extensive Reading:
“Extensive reading” is considered as
being reading rapidly. The readers read books after books. Its attention is
paid to the meaning of the text itself not the language. The purpose of
extensive reading is for pleasure and information. Those, extensive reading is
also termed as “supplementary reading”.
Ø Intensive Reading:
“Intensive reading” means that the
readers take a text, study it line by line, and refer at very moment to the
dictionary about the grammar of the text itself
1.
Extensive Reading:
Extensive Reading is “generally associated with reading large amounts with the
aim of getting an overall understanding of the material. Readers are more
concerned with the meaning of the text than the meaning of individual words or
sentences.” Bamford and Day (1997)
b. Extensive reading is of large
quantities of material or long texts, because reading is individualized,
students choose the books by themselves what they want to read.
2.
Intensive reading :
Intensive reading is usually “a
classroom-oriented activity in which students focus on the linguistic or
semantic details of a passage. Intensive reading calls students' attention to
grammatical forms, discourse markers, and other surface structure details for
the purpose of understanding literal meaning”.( Brown (2007)).
b. Intensive reading is a process
where students read material which is usually above their linguistic level.
Differences b/w
Extensive and Intensive Reading:
The first difference is that
Extensive Reading covers large area, while Intensive Reading covers narrower
area.
The second difference is about
students’ activity in class. In Extensive Reading the students’ activity is more
complex than in Intensive Reading.
The last, Extensive Reading will
discourage the over- use of dictionary ; on the contrary dictionary is a must
in Intensive Reading.
