English – Reading Strategies-2020 

Reading Strategies 

A. Previewing and Predicting 

Previewing and Predicting are two essential skills for a good reader. Pre means before.
View  means to look at. Before you read something, it's important to look it over, or preview
it. When  you gather information about a book by examining the title and the cover, you are
previewing.  The purpose of previewing is to help you to predict or make some “educated
guesses” on what  the book is about.  

Previewing and Predicting help you to get more ideas on what you read so that you can
begin  processing the information far more quickly. You will also able to follow the writer’s
idea better. 

Three Important Things in 

Previewing and Predicting Exercise 1 

1) You identify the topic. 

2) You think about what you already know about the topic. 3) You ask yourself questions
about the topic. 

Look at the title of the paragraph below. (Don't read the paragraph.) Based on the title
only,  what do you think the paragraph is about? 

E-Books 
The book of the future will be made with radio paper and electronic ink.
Radio  paper has a coating of millions of tiny capsules. Inside each capsule,
there is  a dark liquid and hundreds of white balls. An electrical charge can
make the  white balls move to the top of the capsule. This makes the "ink"
Iook white.  An electrical charge can also make the white balls move to the
bottom of the  capsule. This makes the "ink" Iook black. When the capsules
are charged in  a pattern, they form letters on the page. 

Key words are words that appear several times in a paragraph. In the paragraph above,
the  key words are underlined. Based on the key words only, what do you think the
paragraph is  about? 

a. the history of radio paper and electronic ink 

b. how radio paper and electronic ink work 
c. how to use an e-book
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B. Scanning 

What is Scanning? 

Scanning is very high-speed reading. Scanning is a technique you often use when looking
up  a word in the telephone book or dictionary. In most cases; you know what you are
looking for,  so you are concentrating on finding a particular answer.  

Scanning involves moving your eyes quickly down the page seeking specific words or 
phrases. Scanning is also used when you first find a resource to determine whether it will 
answer your questions.  

• Have a question in mind 

• Do not read every word, only read the words that answer your  
question 

How  
to  
scan 

Exercise 2 
• Look for the author’s use of organizers such as numbers, letters,  steps or the words: first,
second, or next 
• Look for words that are boldfaced, italics, or in a different font size,  style or color 
• Sometimes the author will put key idea in the margin. 

Look at the list of art exhibits below. Will you be able to see the exhibition
of  Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing in March? 

Picasso 
through January 10 

The Grand Tour: European and  American Views of Italy 

through January 17 

Joel Sternfeld: Photographs of the  Roman Campagagna 

through January 17 

*Late 20 Century Prints 

th
through January 31 

On Kawara: Data Paintings in 89 Cities through February 7 

Leonardo da Vinci: The Anatomy of Man through February 21 

Master European Paintings from the  National Gallery of Ireland: Mantegna to  Goya 
January 12 – March 28 

Building a Collection: The Department  of Contemporary Art, Part I 

January 28 – July 3 

* Photography: Close-Up/ Still Life February 10 – May 23 

* Closed Thursday and Friday evenings 

Did you read the whole list of exhibitions to find out? No! You knew what to look for.
You  scanned the list to find the information that you needed.

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C. Skimming 

What is Skimming? 

Skimming is high speed reading that can save you lots of time. You skim to get the general 
sense of a passage or a book. 

How do you skim? 

You should read only the words that will help you get the sense of the text. Read the first 
sentences or paragraph quite carefully. The beginning often contains general information 
about the rest of the text. If the text is long, you might also read the second paragraph. 
Sometimes the first paragraph is only an introduction and the second paragraph contains
the  main idea. You should usually read the last paragraph more carefully. 

Exercise 3:  
Read the following text quickly and answer the questions. 
1. When were X-rays discovered? 
2. Who discovered them? 
3. What are the four characteristics of X-rays? 

The Discovery of X-rays 

 Except for a brief description of the Compton effect, and a few other remarks, we
have  postponed the discussion of X-rays until the present chapter because it is particularly 
convenient to treat X-ray spectra after treating optical spectra. Although this ordering may 
have given the reader a distorted impression of the historical importance of X-rays, this 
impression will be corrected shortly as we describe the crucial role played by X-rays in the 
development of modern physics. 
X-rays were discovered in 1895 by Roentgen while studying the phenomena of 
gaseous discharge. Using a cathode ray tube with a high voltage of several tens of kilovolts, 
he noticed that salts of barium would fluoresce when brought near the tube, although
nothing  visible was emitted by the tube. This effect persisted when the tube was wrapped
with a layer  of black cardboard. Roentgen soon established that the agency responsible for
the  fluorescence originated at the point at which the stream of energetic electrons struck the
glass  wall of the tube. Because of its unknown nature, he gave this agency the name X-
rays. He  found that X-rays could manifest themselves by darkening wrapped photographic
plates,  discharging charged electroscopes, as well as by causing fluorescence in a number
of  different substances. He also found that X-rays can penetrate considerable thicknesses
of  materials of low atomic number, whereas substances of high atomic number are
relatively  opaque. Roentgen took the first steps in identifying the nature of X-rays by using a
system of  slits to show that (1) they travel in straight lines, and that (2) they are uncharged,
because  they are not deflected by electric or magnetic fields. 
The discovery of X-rays aroused the interest of all physicists, and many joined in the 
investigation of their properties. In 1899 Haga and Wind performed a single slit diffraction 
experiment with X-rays which showed that (3) X-rays are a wave motion phenomenon, and, 
from the size of the diffraction pattern, their wavelength could be estimated to be 10 cm. In 
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1906 Barkla proved that (4) the waves are transverse by showing that they can be polarized 
by scattering from many materials. 
There is, of course, no longer anything unknown about the nature of X-rays. They
are  electromagnetic radiation of exactly the same nature as visible light, except that their 
wavelength is several orders of magnitude shorter. This conclusion follows from comparing 
properties 1 through 4 with the similar properties of visible light, but it was actually
postulated  by Thomson several years before all these properties were known. Thomson
argued that X 
rays are electromagnetic radiation because such radiation would be expected to be emitted 
from the point at which the electrons strike the wall of a cathode ray tube. At this point, the 
electrons suffer very violent accelerations in coming to a stop and, according to classical 
electromagnetic theory, all accelerated charged particles emit electromagnetic radiations.
We  shall see later that this explanation of the production of X-rays is at least partially
correct. 
In common with other electromagnetic radiations, X-rays exhibit particle-like aspects 
as well as wave-like aspects. The reader will recall that the Compton effect, which is one of 
the most convincing demonstrations of the existence of quanta, was originally observed with 
electromagnetic radiation in the X-ray region of wavelengths.
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