Up and Away - National Council for Curriculum and Assessment

Section 5 Examples of classroom activities
Strategy 3 – Developing scan reading skills
Introduction
Texts which contain a lot of factual information are ideal for developing scan reading skills. Scan reading
is a skill which allows us to locate information in a text efficiently. When we scan read we ignore large
chunks of text as we search for the desired information. We don’t read for full comprehension.
However, by extracting specific pieces of information pupils gain a firm idea of what the text is about. In
other words, scan reading allows pupils to understand the main points of a text (i.e. achieve success)
without knowing every word – a major confidence booster.
Identifying key information
Level of text
Third class.
Level of learner
A1 and higher.
Time
20-25 minutes.
Approach
1. Design a worksheet containing a grid/table which focuses on the generic main points of information
– i.e. people (who), event (what), place (where), and time (when). Make a class set of photocopies.
2. Introduce the theme to generate interest and motivation. In this case ask the class what they know
about telephones, and what they do with a phone (to call, to answer, to hang up, etc.).
3. Hand out the worksheets. Pupils look at the first paragraph of text and, in pairs, put information in
the relevant columns. They should use pencils to start with.
4. Brief feedback. Pupils use their grids to answer questions such as, ‘Who is this about?’, ‘Why is he
important?’, ‘When did it happen?’, ‘What do you know about him?’, etc.
5. Repeat the process with the next paragraph.
Source material: Try This 2. (Reprint, 2001). CJ Fallon.
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