FLSP Reading

Week 4: Skim authentic materials

What is skimming?
 To skim is to understand the general idea and overall meaning of a
passage quickly.
 Skimming is a reading technique that can help you:
 read more quickly
 decide if the text is interesting and whether you should read it in more detail
 You can use the skimming technique when you want to identify the
main ideas in the text.
Some examples
• When reading news in a newspaper or news site you will only read
important parts of the headlines and certainly will not read every
news attentively. You wouldn’t have much detail, but at least you
know enough about what's going on.
• A learner taking a reading exam decides to approach text by looking
at the title, introductions, and any diagrams and sub-headings, then
skim reading to get a clear general idea of what the text is about.
You might use skimming to:
• see what’s in the news in a paper or on a website
• browse through a book to see if you want to read it
• look through the television guide to see what’s on one evening
• flick through a catalogue to see what’s on offer
• look through the options given on a Google search to see what sites it
suggests
The term skimming is often confused with scanning.
You skim a text to obtain the gist - the overall sense - of a piece of
writing. This can help you decide whether to read it more slowly and
in more detail.
You scan a text to obtain specific information. For example, to find a
particular number in a telephone directory.
How to skim?
• Read the title, subtitles and subheadings to find out what the text is
about.
• Look at the illustrations to give you more information about the topic.
• Read the first and last sentence of each paragraph.
• Don’t read every word or every sentence. Let your eyes skim over the
text and look out for key words.
• Continue to think about the meaning of the text
Example passage for skimming

 Read the first two

sentences of each
paragraph
 Read the last
sentence of the
paragraph to confirm
understanding of the
whole idea.