Previewing

The overview of this chapter highlighted the idea that learning involves your looking “hooking”
new knowledge to old. Because of this, you read best when you already know something about the topic
at hand. Even a little helps. Thus, your first concern when beginning a reading selection is to determine
your level of prior knowledge about the topic. To check your prior knowledge about a topic, use the
technique called previewing. For example, would you go to a movie without knowing something about
it? Most likely, no-unless you specifically want to be totally surprised. Perhaps you have heard people
say good things about the movie, you have read a review of it, or you know one of the actors. If you
have an idea about the movie, you can predict in a broad sense what to expect.

The same holds tenfold for reading. Before you read, you need some knowledge of what you are
about to read. By engaging in the act of previewing, you establish all important connections between
what you already know and what is new to you. And once you have some basic information about
reading, you can begin to make predictions about that information. As you will see, the act of
previewing and predicting will give you a platform on which to stand as you dive into reading process.

To preview, do these three things (to yourself or aloud):

1. Based on your looking over the material, consciously predict what the topic and its
development are likely to be about.
2. Ask yourself consciously what you already know about the topic.
3. Predict what you’re reading the material will add to what you already know.
It is also important to keep in mind that no one previewing method works for all
material. Writers present material in a huge variety of ways. Here a guidelines for
other approaches to try out-and to adapt to your needs and preferences.
 For an essay or article, read the opening and closing paragraphs, where main
ideas are often found. Then, stop to decide what you predict the essay or
article is about. Next, read the first lines of the paragraphs (as you become
more skilled, you can skip some paragraphs if a few seem to cluster around
the idea). Then, stop to revisit your first prediction and modify it, if necessary.
 For a textbook chapter, read the title, the first paragraph or introduction, the
subheadings (often appearing in boldface print or italics), and the conclusion
or summary. Then stop to decide what you predict the textbook material will
cover.
 Student often avoid previewing and predicting because they are not willing to take the time to
do it. Yes, previewing and predicting take time, but the payoff is tremendous. Without previewing and
predicting as you start each reading selection, you float in an open sea without oars and a compass.

The discipline for, and skill of, predicting as you read is so important that the next section
discusses how effective readers continue to predict even after the previewing stage of the reading
process.

PREVIEWING TEXTBOOK CHAPTERS

Suppose you are invited to a party this Saturday night in an unfamiliar part of your state, and
you are very exited about going because all your friends will be there. Unfortulately, you are working
until 9 P.M. that night, which means that you have to travel alone and arrive late for the affair. When
Saturday night comes around, you certainly would not get into your car and drive around aimlessly
trying to find the party. Not only would you waste time and gas, but there is a real chance you would
never arrive! Instead, you would have found out spesiffically where the party is, the best way to get
there, and approximately how long the trip is going to take you. Furthermore, when getting directions,
you would have asked for landmarks like traffic lights, service stations, and other stuctures to help guide
your way. In short, you would have tried to become familiar with the route so that you could get to your
destination as quickly and efficiently.

We can apply the same principle to readind textbook chapters. Before starting an assignment,
you shpuld find out when you are going by familiarizing yourself with the material as much as possible.
Not only will it ultimately save time and effort to do this, but it will result in much better comprehension
because you know where you are going to and what to look for along the way. The process by which you
become acquainted with a textbook chapter is called previewing. Like overviewing, previewing involves
skimming or quickly glancing over the material to determine what you will be reading about, how the
information is organized, and what aids to understanding are provided to help you with the task.

When previewing a textbook chapter, process through the following steps:

1.Take note of the title, which tells you the topic of the chapter. Once again, it is the answer to
the question “what is this about?”

2.Check the length of the chapters so that you can gauge how long it will take you to read.
When you are at it, try to get an idea of how difficult the material is, because that also affects
the time it will take you to get through it. The purpose here is for you to prepare yourself
psycologically for the task and come up with a schedule for its completion, which could involve
dividing up the assignment.
 3.Check to see wether there are objective, goal or outcomes at the beginning of the chapter.
They tell you exactly what you are expected to know when you finish reading it, so they can
serve as your personal study goal.

4.Skim the first several paragraphs, which are often an intruction to the main point to be
covered and sometimes present the central message of the entire chapter.

5.Skim the last several paragraph, which could serve as a summary of the most important
information including, once again, the central message of the chapter. Keep in mindthat writers
sometimes provide a more formal summary or review in a separate section at the end of a
chapter, which makes it easy to recognize.

6.Skim the major and minor chapter heading so that you becomes aware of the topics covered
and how they are related to one another. As noted earlier, it is important to note connections
between major and minor heading.

7.Look carefully at the graphic aids, which include charts, graphs, maps, pictures and tables.
Tthey illustrate important information mentioned in the context of the textbook and often sum
up major points made by the writer. Pay particular attention to the captionsor titles and any
explanation that appear over, under, or alongside the graphic aids, because you want to find
what they are about and be aware of the information that they stress. In short , no matter what
graphic aid you encounter, you should always be able to answer the following two questions :
“what is this graphic aid about?” and “what are the major points stressed?”

8.Check wether there are question within or at the end of the chapter. Because they also focus
on the major points, you should keep any questions in mind and try to answer them as you read.
At the very least, the questions can serve as guides to direct your reading to the most valuable
information.

9.Take note of any other aids to understanding offered in the chapter, such as exercises,
outlines, previews, vocabulary lists, or boldfaced and italicized vocabulary defined in context or
in the margins. All of these aids can help make your reading more meaningful.

After have completed your preview of a chapter, take a few moments to think what you have
learned. As you read the chapter, remember what you have discovered from your previews so that you
can focus on the most important information. Although it only takes a short tim, previewing is an
excelent way to get acquainted with textbook material. That familiarity will pay off later on by enabling
ypu to read quicker and with much more understanding.
Strategy 1: Previewing Text
Implementation Guide
Overview
Previewing text before students read helps them learn the material better by
setting a purpose for reading, focusing on the most important information, and
connecting the information in the text to what they already know. In this activity
students will become more familiar with a previewing strategy while reading a
passage on the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León.

The Strategy in Action

Students should complete the following steps to practice the strategy. Be sure
to pass out copies of Activity Guide 1 before students begin their work.
Step 1: Purpose for Reading. Have students answer questions 13 on their
activity guides. You may decide either to set the purpose for reading
yourself, such as to write a paragraph, prepare a presentation, or have
a class discussion, or have students come up with this information on
their own.
Step 2: Important Ideas. Questions 48 ask students to focus on the most
important ideas of the passage. You may want to have students pause
for a few minutes after completing these questions to discuss their
answers and make sure that they are able to identify the main ideas.
Step 3: Connect to What You Know. Have students complete the chart to
discover what they already know about the topic and to help them
generate questions they would like answered in the reading.
Step 4: Read the Text. Now have students read the passage on Juan Ponce
de León.
Step 5: Go Back and Check the Prediction. Have students look back at the
prediction they made about the texts content in question 7. Students
should now be able evaluate their predictions to see how accurate they
were.
Discussion
Once students have finished the activity, you may want to have a brief
discussion with them about the assignment. Encourage students to probe why
they did or did not get close to the texts actual meaning. You may want to ask
students what they think they could do to improve their ability to make
predictions about a texts main ideas before they read.
Student Activity Guide Answers
Part A
1. Answers will vary, but students might mention the desire to learn more
about an important early explorer and his motivation in coming to Florida.
2. Answers will vary depending on the teachers assignment and how this fits
into the larger unit of study.
3. Answers may include that it helps them learn more about the motivation of
early explorers to discover new lands.
4. Students might indicate that the text seems to be broken into the major
events of Ponce de Leons life. Signal words include, the following, next
several months, and after. Dates probably indicate that this relates to
chronological events.
5. Juan Ponce de León
6. Juan Ponce de Leónearly explorer of Florida coast
7. Students should predict that the text will tell them about the life and travels of
Juan Ponce de León
8. Students might mention encomienda system of government, Fountain of
Youth, and explorers.
Part B: Complete tables might look like this:
What I Know about the Topic Questions I Would Like to Have
Answered
Explorers came to Florida.
Explorers met Indians.
Florida is in the Southern part of the
United States.
What is a fountain of youth?
Who was Juan Ponce de León?
Why was Ponce de León important?
How did he die?
Where is Bimimi?
Where is Puerto Rico?

Part C: Students compare their predictions to what the text was really about.
Name:____________________________DATE:____________Class:________
Strategy 1: Previewing Text
Activity Guide
Part A: Answer the following questions BEFORE you read the text.
1. What is your purpose for reading this selection?
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
2. When you finish this reading, what will you do with your new knowledge
(such as write a report, take a test, explain it to someone)?
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
3. How do you think this information fits with what you have learned before and
what you will learn after reading this text?
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
4. Take a quick look over the text. What do you notice about the texts layout?
What are the signal words that may give you a clue about what this text will
explain? There are lots of dates in this reading, what would that indicate?
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
5. What is the topic of this text?
_____________________________________________________________
6. Add three to five words to the topic to describe further what this text is about.
This is probably the main or most important idea.
Reading Strategy 1 4
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
_____________________________________________________________
7. Make a prediction about what this text will say.
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
8. What key vocabulary terms should you understand when you have finished
reading?
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
Part B: Complete the chart below.
What I Know about the Topic Questions I Would Like to Have
Answered

Part C: Now read the text. Once you have finished, answer the question that
follows.

Juan Ponce de León

 Juan Ponce de León was one of the Spanish Empires most ambitious and
successful explorers. His arrival on the Florida coast in 1513 marked the
beginning of permanent European contact with North America. Ponce, Puerto
Rico is named in Ponce de Leóns honor.
Juan Ponce de León was born in a northern Spanish village in 1460. His family
had ties to the Spanish elite, and as a boy, Ponce de León served as a page in
the house of a nobleman. Later he joined the army and fought for the Spanish
crown in its wars against the Moors of Granada.
Ponce de Leóns fascination with exploring new lands was inspired by
Christopher Columbuss voyage to the Americas in 1492. In fact, many
historians think that he was part of Columbuss second expedition across the
Atlantic in 1493. Ponce de León sailed to the West Indian island of Hispaniola,
where he played a key role in containing an American Indian uprising against
Spanish rule. As a reward for his service, the Spanish governor of Hispaniola
placed Ponce de León in charge of the eastern part of the island, where he built
a large plantation.
While Ponce de León was in Hispaniola, local Indians told him that there
were large amounts of gold to be found on a nearby island called Boriquen, or
Puerto Rico. He sailed to the island in 1508, where he found some gold and
established a small settlement. In 1509 Ponce de León became the Spanish
governor of Puerto Rico, a post he held until 1512. During this time, he
established an encomienda system of government on the island. In this
system, Ponce de León granted authority over groups of Indian villages to
individual Spaniards. The villages, in turn, were required to provide labor to
their Spanish overseers.
Ponce de Leóns success in Puerto Rico made him even more eager to
explore new lands. In February 1512 he received a commission from King
Ferdinand to discover and colonize an island called Bimini. While no European
had ever been in this mystical place, Indians in Puerto Rico claimed that it
contained much gold and a special spring that made those who drank from it
feel healthy and youthful.
Ponce de León set sail for Bimini and the Fountain of Youth in March
1513. The following month, he anchored his ship on the coast of a large
landmass. Ponce de León thought that he had discovered a new island, and
named it Florida because he found it during the Easter season and because it
was full of beautiful plant life. (The Spanish phrase pascuaflorida means
"Easter," or "season of flowers.") He spent the next several months exploring
the Florida coastline and continuing his search for Bimini. He returned to
Puerto Rico in October, disappointed that he had been unable to find the island
or its fountain of Youth. The following year Ponce de León traveled to Spain
where the King granted him permission to settle Florida.
 After several more years in Puerto Rico, Ponce de León left for Florida
with two ships and 200 men in early 1521. Shortly after landing on Floridas
west coast, they were attacked by Seminole Indians. Ponce de León was struck
by an arrow during the attack and was immediately taken to Cuba where he
died. He was buried in Puerto Rico.
Look back at the predication you made in question 7. How close was you
predication to what the text was really about? Explain your answer.
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________

REFERENCES:

T. McWhother, Kathleen. 2007. College Reading: 8 Study Skills (ten edition). New York: Pearson.

Thweat, Joseph W.2008. Capital A: 8 Study Skills. London: Pearson.

Lyn, Troyka Q.2005.Structural Reading: Seventh Edition, New york: Pearson.