Scanning is a type of reading which involves looking for a specific piece of information in a

written text.

You might scan a text such as an event listing to find when/where it will be held. Another
situation could be looking for when a certain train departs, or searching for a specific detail from
a news article.

To help students practice scanning, it can be useful to base activities around timed exercises. In
such activities, students may be challenged to read a text and find certain pieces of information
before the timer runs out. This will push them to scan the text rather than read the whole passage
carefully.

Skimming is a type of reading which involves quickly reading a text to get the main ideas and a
general understanding.

Similar to scanning, when practicing skimming, it can be useful to base activities around timed
exercises.

However, after skimming an article, a student should be able to explain what it’s about, and the
general tone of the text. Whereas with scanning they’ll likely just be able to give you specific
pieces of information. 

Reading for detail is exactly what it sounds like – reading the entire text slowly for overall
understanding.

This is the type of reading used most often in everyday life, and will likely be what the students
are most familiar with from previous lessons. After reading a text for detail, the students should
not only be able to explain what it’s about, but should also be able to answer a range of questions
about the text.

When practicing reading for detail, it’s important to ensure that your students know they do not
have to understand each individual word to understand the meaning of the text.

The activities below can be used to help practice different reading skills, and can easily be
adapted to fit specific aims or preferences of your class.

Skimming activity: Timed previews

Test your students’ skimming abilities by asking them to read only the headlines and images of
an article and then make suggestions about its content.

This is a good exercise to start any reading lesson and encourages greater independence in your
students as they are forced to glean the context and subject through these visual clues. 

Scanning activity: Student summaries

A popular activity to practice students’ scanning abilities can be to hand out a passage of text to
each student, along with a set of questions about the text. Then, give a set amount of time for
students to read the text, before checking how many of the questions they were able to answer.

When selecting questions, you should make sure to choose questions with definite answers that
can be located within the text – such as asking ‘how many/what time/who/what happened’,
rather than questions that require the student to form an opinion.

Reading for detail activity: Proofreading

One of the more useful reading activities which you can teach your students is to proofread their
own work.

Proofreading requires that your students read for detail in an exaggerated fashion and also helps
them to become aware of problems in their own writing. Everyone makes errors, no matter if
they’re native or extremely fluent, and being able to spot mistakes is an essential part of
academic and professional writing.

One of the great things about these exercises, is that they can be adapted easily to fit your
classes’ interests and skill level.

If you’re teaching a Korean class who love the latest K-pop music star, then you could choose an
article about this music group. Alternatively, if you’re teaching an adult class, you might use a
lifestyle magazine, or a newspaper article.

Reading requires coherence:

Reading doesn’t just rely on being able to pronounce the words, it also involves understanding
the overall connection between sentences being read – this is known as coherence.

A student’s coherence can be limited by their understanding of grammar pattern