Skimming and Scanning
Skimming is a rapid reading technique used to get a general overview of a document. You can ask participants to skim through their participant workbook, a handout, or other document as a preview before doing more detailed reading. Scanning is a similar technique. When you scan, you read rapidly to find specific facts. You can skim to get a general idea about a document. You would scan to locate a particular fact. It is important to note skimming and scanning provide an incomplete understanding, and participants may overlook nuances and key details if they don’t go back and read more thoroughly.
When skimming, readers should pay attention to:
- Text features, like headings, boldface and italic type
- Indented text
- Bulleted and numbered lists
- Key words and phrases
- Names of people and places
- Important dates
Instructions
You can guide participants through a skimming and scanning activity. Ask them to complete one or more of the following steps:
- Read the table of contents or chapter overview to learn how the information is organized.
- Quickly scan main headings and subheadings.
- Read the sentences that contain bolded or italicized key words.
- Read the introductory paragraph or abstract.
Instructor-Led Training
When introducing the participant workbook at the start of a course, encourage participants to just read through the table of contents, main headings, and subheadings in the different lessons. Ask participants to make predictions about the content based on their quick preview and then to skim read to check if their predictions were correct.
Web Conference Training
To get participants engaged with assigned articles, websites, or other reading materials, ask them to scan to identify key words and phrases. Ask for volunteers to share items that caught their eye or spurred a question they were interested in answering.