2 – READING

1.0 Introduction
Reading is a very important aspect of written communication. It is a highly
complex procedure, involving careful co-ordination of the eye and mind to
achieve the required results – which we often take for granted. Reading is
an important part of student life. Success of student life depends to a large
extent on one’s ability to read effectively.

We read for different purposes. If we read a poem, we often read it in a

way to help us appreciate the sounds, rhythms . . . If we read a newspaper
story on a football game, we may only be interested in the scores and who
scored the goals; so we will surely read such a story in a way different from
reading a poem. Similarly, a student would read his or her notes in a way
different from the way he/she reads a story book because he needs to
grasp certain points to remember later. Likewise, in a business setting, you
will need to read all kinds of written materials for different purposes and
each will demand a different kind of reading.

It is therefore important to know the different techniques of reading, and

to know which to adopt according to the nature, difficulty and length of the
writing involved. Thus, at the end of this lesson, students should be able
to:

1. Describe and explain the three main ways of reading – scanning,

skimming and close/detailed reading.
2. Explain the characteristics and usefulness of each of the three ways of
reading.
3. Give examples of each of these ways of reading

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 4. Describe how to critically read text books
5. State and explain bad reading practices or reading faults.

2.0 Ways of Reading

There are three main techniques used in reading. These are namely:

- Scanning
- Skimming and
- Close/ Detailed Reading.

2.1 Scanning

Scanning is the process of looking quickly through a text to find a particular

or specific piece of information. It is an exercise to usually identify or locate
some word or words, expression or figure on a written or typed material.
The aim of scanning is not to give meaning but to find a specific item in the
text. To scan a piece of writing, move our eyes quickly down the text,
looking for key words related to the topic in question – as you would look
around a crowd of people for a close relative.

Scanning is used most often for reading street or telephone directories to

find a particular name or number. It is also used for reading the table of
contents or index of a book to find a particular topic or subject. Anyone in
a position of seniority in a company will also have to read reports,
abstracts, and other documents produced by employees. Here, scanning is
essential since it allows the reader to select aspects of the report for
specific attention.

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 Characteristics of scanning include the following:

- The reader has an idea about the items he is looking for.

- Reading is a directed activity which focuses on some specific
items.
- Reading may not cover all the material. It may focus on certain
alphabetical or numerical arrangement. For instance, scanning an
alphabetical list for a name or word.
- Information sought is usually short – words, expressions and
figures.

Examples of scanning include the following:

- Locating words in a dictionary

- Locating words, expressions, figures or names on a list
- Identifying particular names, words, figures or expressions from a
passage
- Locating a book title from a list of books or a catalogue
- Locating author name from a catalogue
- Locating a book from a shelf using its name.
Scanning helps one to locate specific short information. The reader also
builds some skills which include:

- Fast planned eye movement

- Enhanced gaze i. e. ability to see so much in a gaze or eye focus
- Familiarity with alphabetical and numerical arrangement or order.

2.2 Skimming

Skimming involves quickly looking through a passage of writing to gain a

general or overall idea of its meaning. Unlike scanning, skimming is a
reading technique that aims at understanding, or at obtaining facts. It
does not seek to identify figures, words or phrase. Rather, it seeks to

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identify the gist of a story or text and not the full meaning or details.
Skimming seeks to answer questions such as:

- What is the gist of the story?

- What is this story, passage or chapter about?

Thus, skimming is generally a fast way of reading which is expected to use

as little time as possible. In skimming a text, one concentrates on the main
or skeletal facts or ideas, not the details. The following are very important
in skimming:

- Topics and subtopics: Where a work is meticulously divided up,

the topics and sub-topics alone can be brought together to make
up its gist.
- Specific writing forms: Italics, capitalization, etc. Items italicized
or capitalized are usually very important to the meaning of a text.
- Topic sentences which are the ideas of paragraphs can be
targeted when skimming.
- Transitional markers, such as also, in addition, on the other hand .
. . . also help to trace the movement or development of a story or
presentation.
Examples of skimming include the following:

- Skimming is used to read books, articles, newspapers or even

letters when there is not much time to read the entire text. The
purpose of skimming here is to help us satisfy our curiosity. You
can skim a report or letter quickly before going to a meeting.
- Sometimes also, there is the need to skim a text in order to assess
its relevance or to formulate questions which will help in close
reading. Thus, skimming helps one to decide whether he/she

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 need to read a whole book or article in detail.
- In revision too, skimming is important. When preparing for
examination, it may not always be possible, because of lack of
time, to read the whole text. On can thus, skim the passage,
chapter, notes . . . looking only at the topic sentences or core
sentences which one may have to underline. The points and not
the details are important in this kind of revision.

You can increase the speed of your skimming by using two methods.

- The first involves drawing a finger down the centre of the page
and moving your eyes rapidly from side to side as you follow the
finger down.
- The second method is the curtain technique. This involves moving
a piece of paper down the page, curtaining off the lines you have
already read. Both methods stop you from going back to re-read
what you have already read, and also ensures that you
concentrate on quick reading.

Skimming is useful for several reasons which include:

- Skimming saves time and aids easy revision.

- It helps in sharpening one’s summary skills as one learns to pick
only salient information in skimming.
- Skimming helps to identify or pay attention to the salient parts of
a story or presentation.
- It aids imagination and inference. This s because with the little
information gained, the reader is expected to determine the

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 meaning and focus of the whole larger text.
- Also, skimming increases expectation to read more and can make
subsequent close reading more active, enjoyable and purposeful.

Thus, generally, there are two main differences between scanning and
skimming, namely:

- We skim for general information and scan for specific information

- We scan with prior knowledge of what we are looking for while we
skim without any knowledge of what to expect.

2.3 Close/ Detailed/ Critical Reading

Sometimes it is necessary to read something in detail – when studying a

report or a text book for example. To do this one must read more slowly
than skimming or scanning. Close/ detailed reading does not seek to
identify particular structures as in scanning nor does it seek to get the gist
of the text. Rather, close reading aims at yielding the full meaning of a text.
Thus, in close reading, all the various aspects of the test are important.
One must concentrate on whole sentences rather than single words so that
one can take in whole ideas. There is also the need to ask questions while
you read closely. For example you may ask questions like: What is the
main point of the whole section? How does this sentence develop the
point made in this paragraph? Asking questions helps one to build
concentration better and to get a better understanding of what the author
is saying. After reading a chapter or section, there is the need to stop and
think about what has been said. This will also aid your concentration and

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 understanding and will help in making notes. Some of the documents
which require detailed reading are:

- Contracts and legal documents

- Research and development reports
- Textbooks for study and exam purposes
A four-step strategy or formula may be used for close/ detailed reading –
SQRW. Each of these letters stands for one step in the strategy:

- S Survey
- Q Questions
- R Read
- W Write

Using SQRW will help you to understand what you read and to prepare a
written record of what you learned. The written record will be valuable when
you have to participate in a class discussion or class test.

1. Survey: Surveying brings to mind what you already know about the
topic and prepares you for learning more. To survey a chapter, or a
book, or a reading, one does both skimming and scanning. One needs to
read quickly the title, introduction, headings, summary and conclusion.
Also examine all visuals such as pictures, tables, maps, and/or graphs
and read the caption that goes with each. By surveying, you quickly
learn what the chapter or reading is about.
2. Questions: As you read, you need to ask questions. Questions give you
a purpose for reading and help you stay focused on the reading. You
could form questions by changing each chapter heading into a question.
Use words such as, who, what, when, where, why and how to form

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 questions.
3. Read: Read the information that follows each heading to find the
answers to the questions you formed. Read slowly and meaningfully.
Stay focused and flexible so that you can gather as much information as
you need to answer each question.
4. Write: Write each question and its answers in your notebook – prepare
notes on what you read. Reread each of your written answers to be
sure each answer is legible and contains all the important information
need to answer the questions.

As you practice using SQRW, you will learn more and have good study notes to
use for class participation and tests.

3.0 Critical Reading of Textbooks

Critical reading is the process of reading a text fully so as to gain all the
necessary information and complete understanding. Thus, students need
to read textbooks using this procedure. Critical reading is usually a
combination of all the three types of reading already discussed above.
When reading critically, one often needs to take notes too, in order to
ensure that all the relevant information is obtained. Critical reading
involves the following four stages:
1. Appraisal
2. Skimming
3. Detailed Reading
4. Review

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3.1 Appraisal
Reading a book, report or document from cover to cover is not always the
most effective method of absorbing the information it contains or the most
economic use of time. Instead, you should first try to know exactly what
the writing has to offer – a process called initial appraisal.

General appraisal is what you do when you pick a book in a bookshop and
want to find out something about it before deciding whether or not to buy
it. You may look at the author’s name, title of the book (or details of the
publication). Most books contain a short statement of what the book is
about, usually on the inside flap or on the back cover and this is also read to
get a general idea of the contents of the book. (General appraisal is
therefore a good example of skimming as a reading technique).

Initial appraisal consists of reading certain elements in a particular way and

recording information about them. These elements include:
1. Details of the publication
This is a record of the reading material. It will help the reader to find the
reading material again if he/she needs to. It will also help the reader if
he has to quote from the material or summarize its main points in a
report or abstract. A record of a book or any written material should
contain the following details:
a. Author’s full name
b. Title of book or piece of writing
c. Title of periodical (if it is an article)
d. Date of publication
e. Edition
f. Publisher

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 g. Place of publication
E.g. Sillars, Stuart. (1998). Success in communication. 5th Edition,
John Murray Publishers Ltd: London
2. The contents page
This is the list of chapters and topics and their page numbers at the
beginning of every book. It usually gives the title of each chapter and
sometimes a list of sub-headings too. Glancing through the contents
page is a valuable way of knowing what the book has to say, i. e.
whether or not it is relevant to your research or for your studies.
3. The Index
The index is an alphabetical listing of all the major topics covered by the
book, together with the numbers of the pages on which they appear.
The index is usually found at the back pages of the book.

An index can save you a considerable amount of time when researching

since it enables you to find specific references to a topic without having
to read through the whole book.

When appraising a book, it is a good thing to check whether an item in

which you have particular interest appears in the index and how often it
appears.

4. The Introduction
Many books and reports begin with a short introduction which outlines
what they are about. Reading this can often be very useful. It may
make clear whether the book is concerned with an aspect of a topic you
are interested in or not. Sometimes, the introduction is the first chapter

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 of the book and you will have to quickly glance through this.
5. First and last paragraphs
Very often, a writer will establish the main concerns of a chapter in the
first paragraph. In a similar way, the last paragraph of a chapter will
summarize the main points or draw conclusions. Skimming through the
first and last paragraphs of a chapter can help you to decide whether to
read the entire chapter in detail.
6. Summaries and Conclusions
Some publications contain sections that summarize the main points
made in a chapter or section. Such summaries or conclusions often
provide a valuable way of assessing the main content and should be
skimmed through as part of the appraisal process.

3.2 Skimming
Once you have completed the appraisal process, you will have a clear idea
of the nature of the book and what pages you need to read. The next thing
is to skim through these pages to gain a general idea of what they say, in
preparation for a more detailed reading.
3.3 Detailed Reading
Go through the passage slowly as already discussed under detailed reading.
Use the SQRW formula to obtain the required information and
understanding of the reading.
3.4 Review
After completing the detailed reading, pause again and review or examine

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 what you have read. Try then, to give a brief descriptive title which
conveys the main idea: if you can do this, then you probably have a clear
understanding of the subject/ topic covered.

When you have completed the four stages of critical reading – appraisal,
skimming, detailed reading and review – you should have a clear idea of the
main points of the reading/ chapter/ book. You should also genuinely
understand what the writer was attempting to convey.

Critical reading is therefore a process rather difficult than that which is

normally described as reading, but it will endure that you have a far
stronger understanding of what you have read.

4.0 Bad Reading Practices/ Reading faults

Reading is an activity that has one major purpose – to yield information.
The effectiveness of reading is seen in:
- The coverage or information acquired
- The speed with which the information is acquired
Any reading habit which results in waste of time or prevents the acquisition
of much information in the shortest possible time is considered a reading
fault or a bad reading practice. Several of these practices are discussed
below.
1. Vocalization/ Sub-vocalization/ Reading aloud/ Lisping
The human eye sees faster and the mind also perceives faster than the
lips can read out. In this sense then, vocalization – which simply means
pronouncing words whilst reading or reading aloud – reduces the speed

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 and the possible area you can cover in reading. This is because your eye
and mind are forced to slow down and move at the same speed as the
lips. Again, pronouncing the words, or whispering or muttering them
takes your concentration away from the meaning of the material. The
reason is that you are tempted to pay attention to your pronunciation
and sometimes correct yourself when you go wrong. Thus, vocalization
is a reading fault because it retards your reading speed and hampers
your concentration and your acquisition of knowledge.

On the other hand, vocalization can sometimes enhance your reading in

the following circumstances:

- When you use it at certain times to stress a point to yourself, it

helps understanding and retention.
- When you cannot concentrate or keep yourself awake.
- When you want to memorize and retain information.
It is necessary to understand that such positive uses of vocalization are
undertaken with a particular goal in mind. Vocalization is generally not
advisable when it is used without purpose.

2. Pointing at Words
This fault also reduces reading speed an understanding because our
eyes see more than one word at a time. Sometimes we see a whole line
or even more at a time. But when we point at the words, the eye is
forced to slow down and to read one word at a time. In addition, the
activity of pointing can cause early exhaustion.

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3. Fixity of Gaze
This is when one keeps his/her eye on one or two words at a time
without moving on. This slows down reading and impairs
understanding.
4. Regression
Regression is when one reads over a portion of reading one has already
read, basically because of lack of concentration. The reader reads over a
portion but fails to understand because of lack of concentration or
because of the nature of the printing.
Regression wastes reading time and causes early exhaustion and
frustration.
5. Poor reading posture/ Poor positioning of reading material
The way we sit or position the material we read also affects the
effectiveness of reading. When we sit in an awkward position, it affects
our spinal cord. Consequently, we get to feel tired early. We sometimes
also place the book either too close to our eyes or too far away. When it
is too close, we tend to bring undue tension on our eyes. It also
prevents us from having a good gaze, and from seeing many words at a
time. When it is too far away, reading is impaired because some of the
words cannot be easily seen. Thus, poor reading posture or positioning
of the reading material results in straining our eyes which reduces
concentration and understanding.
6. Reading in psychological stress
One reads effectively when the mind is relaxed. A troubled and

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 disturbed mind finds it difficult to concentrate on the reading and
understand what is being read. This slows down reading speed as there
is lack of concentration.
7. Reading to impress
Reading for others to admire an listen to impedes one’s own
concentration and subsequently, understanding. Reading to impress
others does not help in the least.
8. Seeing words outside contest
Some words have more than one meaning and context is important in
bringing out the right meaning of a word.
9. Inattention to punctuation, stress and intonation
This distorts the meaning and slows down reading since punctuation
marks help improve the meaning of a text.
10. Concentrating on details during initial reading
Close reading aims at details: but sometimes concentrating on many
details during the initial reading or when skimming prevents one from
getting the main points of the reading. It slows down reading as the
reader spends more time to understand the details. A flexible attitude
to details is therefore necessary.
11. Reading with constant speed
This results in monotony and slows down understanding and
concentration.
12. Looking up too many words in the dictionary
Stopping each time one comes across a new word to look it up in the

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 dictionary slows down reading. It is important to look up key words in a
reading. However, if you have to look up every other word on the page
or several words on a page, then the assumption is that the reading is
far above your level of competence, and that you are going to proceed
at an unacceptably slow rate. One needs to build a good vocabulary in
order to avoid this fault.

5.0 Conclusion
From what has been discussed in this lesson, one can easily conclude that
reading is a complex skill which demands care, practice and concentration.
Reading is an essential part of success in study. The techniques discussed
would provide a firm foundation upon which to develop note-making and
summarizing skills.

6.0 Exercises
1. What are the following and when are they used:

a. Scanning
b. Skimming
c. Detailed Reading

2. State and explain five reading practices that slow down reading.

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