The following skills are the traditional English reading skills taught throughout the world. There are sub-skills related to these Macro-reading skills, but we will deal with those and their relatedness in future posts.

Skimming: Skimming is a quick read for general ideas. You look for a general understanding of the text and try to place it in its correct genre. Is it a letter? Is it a newspaper article? Is it a book chapter? You do not have to read every word in the text. You look at the title, subtitle, pictures, or graphics for clues as to what the text is about. You ‘skim’ the text.

Scanning: Scanning is also a quick reading, but the key difference that distinguishes it from Skimming is that the reader is looking for ‘particular information’. You are usually looking for a number or a name or a time or a date, so you would scan a test looking for that particular bit of information.

1. Decide what information you are looking for  – Are you looking for a time when something starts? Then you would look for a time (5:30 p.m.) or a date (on July 1st). If you want to know who did something, then you would look for a name.
2. Then decide where you would look for such information. You would look in the Sports section of a paper to see who won a soccer match, or you would go to the section that begins with the letter M if you look up a name such as Ken Marcovich.
3. Move your eyes quickly down the page until you find what you are looking for. Read to get the information.
4. When you find what you are looking for, you usually stop reading.

Thorough Comprehension: When you read for thorough comprehension, you attempt to know the total meaning of the text. You need to know the details as well as the general meaning of the text. When you have thoroughly comprehended a text, you will have:

1. Understood the main idea and the author’s point of view
2. Understood the relationships of ideas in the text and how they relate to the author’s purpose.
3. Understood that some points of view may not have been mentioned, but they were implied by the author/narrator. You can ‘draw inferences’ from the text (educational, fact-based, guesses)
4. Understood most of the ideas and concepts in a text as well as the lexis/vocabulary used. Thus, you undoubtedly know how to ‘guess’ the meanings of unfamiliar words by way of context (or look the words up in a dictionary).

Critical Reading: When we read critically, we draw conclusions and make judgments about the text. You ask questions about the text -do I agree with this author’s or character’s point of view? What inferences can we draw from this text? Generally, people do this when they read but judgments become more critical when authors give opinions about important issues or when you are trying to make a decision.

The best text to review that I know to review reading skills is “The Barrett Taxonomy of Cognitive and
Affective Dimensions of Reading Comprehension”, which can be found here:  http://joebyrne.net/Curriculum/barrett.pdf

Also, for advanced readers, Harvard has these pages for reading habits: https://guides.library.harvard.edu/sixreadinghabits