Male with gray hair, wearing, wearing black jacket: Skiming reading is a skill that you've got to learn.
Male wearing glasses and blue shirt: You're reading a complex report or a document, or even some of the [Indistinct] and procedure, they can be quite wordy and quite large.
So, I skim read; I'm just glancing over until we find the subject matter that we want, then we'll sit down and then we'll pick the pieces out we actually need.
Male wearing glasses and pale blue shirt: I tend to, sort of, use speed reading to, sort of, judge relevance really; do I need to look at this document in depth?
Can I get enough information from what I've seen, to achieve what I need to achieve?
Not all documents that I receive I need to read in great depth.
Male working in bus garage: We use scanning quite a lot in the trade because you've done so many jobs, you've got all the hard work out of the way, but there's still jobs on the sheet, maybe half way up the sheet, what you've passed…
So, you'll come from your bus to the sheet, scan through it really quick and then come back, see the job that you've missed, and then you'll start work on that one.
Speed reading or skimming is great when you quickly want to find a specific piece of information in a piece of text.
Quick tips for tutors
Skimming and scanning includes:
- How to skim read texts for the gist
- How to scan texts for specific information
- The difference between skimming and scanning
Downloadable Factsheets
Entry 1 & 2 - Scanning a recipe
An introduction to scanning a recipe.

Entry 1 & 2 - Skimming and scanning the news
An introduction to skimming and scanning a newspaper report.

Entry 3 - Skimming and scanning
Understand the differences between skimming and scanning a text or texts for information or to get the gist.

Level 1 - What is skimming?
How to skim a text as a fast reading technique to look for main ideas in a text.

Level 1 - What is scanning?
How to scan as a fast way to find specific information in a text.

Downloadable Worksheets
Entry 1 & 2 - Scanning a recipe
Scan a recipe to find answers to questions.

Entry 3 - Scanning text to find information quickly
Exercise in scanning a television guide to find information about broadcasts quickly.

Entry 3 - Skimming text to look for main ideas
Exercise in skimming a television guide for the main information provided.

Level 1 - Scanning a job advertisement
Exercise in scanning text about work and finding information quickly.

Level 1 - Scanning a school prospectus
Exercise in scanning an example of a school prospectus to find information quickly.

Level 1 - Skimming a school prospectus
Exercise in skimming an example of a school prospectus to find the main points.

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