Reading Skills

Vocabulary Skills 1. Recognising the defining of the words being used

2. Guessing the meaning of the words from the structure

and from the context

3. Inferring the meanings of the words from the context

Visual perceptual 1. Accurate visual perception

skills
2. Quick eye fixation

Prediction technique 1. Using chapter heading or index to predict the theme

2. Guessing from the title

3. Scanning graphic contents or non-verbal contents

Scanning Skills Locating specific information

Skimming Skills Identifying the theme or central idea

Intensive Reading Reading for details -

Skills
1. Reading critically

2. Distinguishing fact from opinion

3. Identifying and evaluating author’s biases, attitudes

4. Drawing inferences and conclusions

SKIMMING & SCANNING

Skimming and scanning are reading techniques that use rapid eye movement and keywords to
move quickly through text for slightly different purposes. Skimming is reading rapidly in order to
get a general overview of the material. Scanning is reading rapidly in order to find specific facts.
While skimming tells you what general information is within a section, scanning helps you locate
a particular fact. Skimming is like snorkeling, and scanning is more like pearl diving.
Use skimming in previewing (reading before you read), reviewing (reading after you read),
determining the main idea from a long selection you don't wish to read, or when trying to find
source material for a research paper.

Use scanning in research to find particular facts, to study fact-heavy topics, and to answer
questions requiring factual support.

Skimming to save time

Skimming can save you hours of laborious reading. However, it is not always the most
appropriate way to read. It is very useful as a preview to a more detailed reading or when
reviewing a selection heavy in content. But when you skim, you may miss important points or
overlook the finer shadings of meaning, for which rapid reading or perhaps even study reading
may be necessary.

Use skimming to overview your textbook chapters or to review for a test. Use skimming to
decide if you need to read something at all, for example during the preliminary research for a
paper. Skimming can tell you enough about the general idea and tone of the material, as well
as its gross similarity or difference from other sources, to know if you need to read it at all.

To skim, prepare yourself to move rapidly through the pages. You will not read every word; you
will pay special attention to typographical cues-headings, boldface and italic type, indenting,
bulleted and numbered lists. You will be alert for key words and phrases, the names of people
and places, dates, nouns, and unfamiliar words. In general follow these steps:

1. Read the table of contents or chapter overview to learn the main divisions of ideas.
2. Glance through the main headings in each chapter just to see a word or two. Read the
headings of charts and tables.
3. Read the entire introductory paragraph and then the first and last sentence only of each
following paragraph. For each paragraph, read only the first few words of each sentence or
to locate the main idea.
4. Stop and quickly read the sentences containing keywords indicated in boldface or italics.
5. When you think you have found something significant, stop to read the entire sentence to
make sure. Then go on the same way. Resist the temptation to stop to read details you don't
need.
6. Read chapter summaries when provided.
If you cannot complete all the steps above, compromise: read only the chapter overviews and
summaries, for example, or the summaries and all the boldfaced keywords. When you skim,
you take a calculated risk that you may miss something. For instance, the main ideas of
paragraphs are not always found in the first or last sentences (although in many textbooks they
are). Ideas you miss you may pick up in a chapter overview or summary.

Good skimmers do not skim everything at the same rate or give equal attention to everything.
While skimming is always faster than your normal reading speed, you should slow down in the
following situations:

 When you skim introductory and concluding paragraphs

 When you skim topic sentences
 When you find an unfamiliar word
 When the material is very complicated

Scanning for research and study

Scanning, too, uses keywords and organizational cues. But while the goal of skimming is a
bird's-eye view of the material, the goal of scanning is to locate and swoop down on particular
facts.

Facts may be buried within long text passages that have relatively little else to do with your
topic or claim. Skim this material first to decide if it is likely to contain the facts you need. Don't
forget to scan tables of contents, summaries, indexes, headings, and typographical cues. To
make sense of lists and tables, skim them first to understand how they are organized:
alphabetical, chronological, or most-to-least, for example. If after skimming you decide the
material will be useful, go ahead and scan:

1. Know what you're looking for. Decide on a few key words or phrases–search terms, if you
will. You will be a flesh-and-blood search engine.
2. Look for only one keyword at a time. If you use multiple keywords, do multiple scans.
3. Let your eyes float rapidly down the page until you find the word or phrase you want.
4. When your eye catches one of your keywords, read the surrounding material carefully.

Scanning to answer questions

If you are scanning for facts to answer a specific question, one step is already done for you: the
question itself supplies the keywords. Follow these steps:
1. Read each question completely before starting to scan. Choose your keywords from the
question itself.
2. Look for answers to only one question at a time. Scan separately for each question.
3. When you locate a keyword, read the surrounding text carefully to see if it is relevant.
4. Re-read the question to determine if the answer you found answers this question.
Scanning is a technique that requires concentration and can be surprisingly tiring. You may
have to practice at not allowing your attention to wander. Choose a time and place that you
know works for you.

What Is Speed Reading?

Speed reading is the process of rapidly recognizing and absorbing phrases or
sentences on a page all at once, rather than identifying individual words.

The amount of information that we process seems to be growing by the day, whether
it's emails, reports and websites at work, or social media, books and magazines at
home. We likely feel pressure to get through this information more quickly, so that we
can "stay in the loop" and make informed decisions.

Most people read at an average rate of 250 words per minute (wpm), though some are
naturally quicker than others. But, the ability to speed read could mean that you
double this rate.

We'll now explore some of the skills that you can use to accelerate your reading.

How to Speed Read

All speed reading techniques have one thing in common: you avoid pronouncing and
"hearing" each word in your head as you read it, a process known as as "sub-
vocalization." Instead, you "skim" lines or groups of words, as you can understand
words more quickly than you can say them.

One way to stop yourself from sub-vocalizing is to focus on blocks of words rather
than on individual ones. Do this by relaxing your face and "softening" or expanding
your gaze on the page, so that you stop seeing words as single, distinct units. As you
practice this, your eyes will skip faster across the page.

Then, when you approach the end of a line, allow your peripheral vision to take your
eye to the final set of words. This will help to stop pauses in your reading (often at full
points), meaning that you scan across and down to the next line more quickly.

Now let's look at three methods to boost your reading speed:

1. The Pointer Method

Utah school teacher Evelyn Nielsen Wood was one of the pioneers of speed reading.
In the 1950s, she claimed that she could read at up to 2,700 wpm if she swept a finger
along the line as she read.

This became known as the Pointer method, and is also sometimes called "hand
pacing" or "meta guiding." Holding a card under each line and drawing it down the
page as you read works just as well.

2. The Tracker-and-Pacer Method

This is a variant of the Pointer method where you hold a pen, with its cap still on, and
underline or track each line as you read it, keeping your eye above the tip of the pen.
This will help to increase the pace at which you take in each line, and improve your
focus on the words. Whether you actually underline the words is your choice.

Try to spend no more than one second on each line and then increase your speed with
each subsequent page. You will probably find that you retain very little information at
first, but, as you train your brain and you become more comfortable with the
technique, your comprehension should improve.

Note:
An advantage of the Pointer and Tracker-and-Pacer methods is that they should
reduce your need to skip back and re-read sentences – a hindrance to speed reading
that is known as "regression."

3. The Scanning (or Previewing) Method

"Scanning" involves moving your eyes quickly down the page – often down the center
– and identifying specific words and phrases as you go. These can be key sentences
(often the first sentence of each paragraph), names, numbers, or trigger words and
ideas. Learning to expand your peripheral vision can help with this.

You won't read every word, but your eye will land on what is important to allow you
to grasp the basic idea. It may be helpful to use a mind map® to organize the
information you take in.

When to Speed Read

These techniques can all help you to read more quickly, but are they appropriate for
what you're trying to achieve?

Effective speed reading is a balance between pace and comprehension. Studies have
found that the faster you read, the less information you take in, particularly when it
comes to remembering detail.

So, speed reading is clearly not the answer if you're reading a complex legal or
technical document, even if you are pushed for time. Similarly, it would be sensible to
slow down if the material you're reading is new or unfamiliar, or if you have to teach
it to someone else.

When you need to understand only the basic arguments or conclusions being
presented, though, using a speed reading technique can work.

This may especially be the case if you intend to go back and re-read something more
slowly when you're less busy. In fact, one study has suggested that skimming a text
can improve your comprehension second time around.

Generally speaking, if you want to memorize something, you'll need to read slowly, at
less than 100 wpm. A normal rate for learning is 100-200 wpm, and for
comprehension it is 200-400 wpm700.

Speed reading is normally done at a rate of around 400-wpm. Anything above 500-
600 wpm means sacrificing comprehension, although this varies from person to
person.
Context clues

Context clues are hints that an author gives to help define a difficult or unusual word.
The clue may appear within the same sentence as the word to which it refers, or it may
follow in a preceding sentence. Because most of one’s vocabulary is gained through
reading, it is important that you be able to recognize and take advantage of context
clues.

There are at least four kinds of context clues that are quite common: 1)
a synonym (or repeat context clue) which appears in that sentence; 2)
anantonym (or contrast context clue) that has the opposite meaning, which can reveal
the meaning of an unknown term; 3) an explanation for an unknown word is given
(adefinition context clue) within the sentence or in the sentence immediately
preceding; and 4) specific examples (an example context clue) used to define the
term.

There may also be word-part context clues in which a common prefix, suffix, or root
will suggest at least part of the meaning of a word. A general sense context clue lets
the reader puzzle out a word meaning from whatever information is available – and
this is the most common kind of context clue. Others describe context clues in three
ways: 1) semantic or meaning clues, e.g., When reading a story about cats, good
readers develop the expectation that it will contain words associated with cats, such as
“tail,” “purr,” “scratch,” and “whiskers”; 2) syntactic or word order clues where the
order of the words in a sentence can indicate that a missing word must be (for
example, a verb); and 3) picture clues where illustrations help with the identification
of a word.