5.+Skimming+and+Scanning

Please keep the following Important Questions in mind while reading this page: //1. How long do you think you spend scanning a website on your first visit? What information do you gather during this time?// //2. What information do you gather on repeat visits to a website?//

How do we deal with the wave of information at our fingertips? The skills of skimming and scanning are essential survival skills for students and teachers trying to sail the high seas of digital images, text, animations, and sounds encountered in an average day on the internet. While it may seem that students are adept at quickly glancing over a website and determining its worth to their information needs, their skimming and scanning is often based on form, not content. The online reading environment requires students to skim for traditional text features such as key words, titles, and first and last sentences in paragraphs, as well as digital text features such as format, hyperlinks, pull out quotes, and URL features. Of course, they will also be scanning to find the length of the text, imbedded videos, games, animations, and graphics.

The following SlideShare reviews the difference between skimming and scanning. Please review the slides if you need a little refresher on the differences.

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The[| Library Learning Commons]offers extensive information on how to skim and scan in a variety of contexts. Strategies for skimming and scanning a website are also addressed. The graphic below shows the tips provided for skimming and scanning material online. The reader is encouraged to avoid reading from top to bottom and left to right. Instead, the eye should bounce over the page, gathering information and impressions.




 * The following are two lessons you could use in your classroom to refine the skills of skimming and scanning**

**__Mini lesson for the wee scallywags: scanning (Grades 3 - 7)__**


 * Objectives** (the learners will be able to):
 * practice their scanning skills
 * gain confidence in their online reading abilities
 * improve their ability to efficiently gather information online
 * use Command + F / Control + F to find key words on a web page or document


 * Activating Prior Knowledge**:
 * 1) Where's Waldo? Ask students if they are familiar with the I Spy or Where's Waldo? series of books. Have a few copies available to demonstrate or put under an AVerVison. Have students as a class on the big screen, or in small groups with print copies, try to find Waldo or the I Spy items.


 * Acquiring New Knowledge**:
 * 1) Pull up a complex Wordle such as [|this one]. Challenge students to find a particular word that is two or three letters long; if using the example provided, challenge them to find the word "big." After finding the short word, scan for a longer word such as "understand" in our example.
 * 2) Discuss how your eyes move around the graphic to find the exact word and the different strategies students used to find the desired words. Students may discuss looking at all horizontal words, all vertical words, all words in a certain colour, only the first few letters of a word, only words that were short or long, etc.
 * 3) On the main screen, teach students how to use the Find command to locate a certain word in a page of text. On a Mac, this will be Command + F, on a PC, Control + F. Be sure to discuss with students why spelling, singulars vs. plurals, and key words are important: the computer program will search for //exactly// what you type in!


 * Applying New Learning**:
 * 1) Have students navigate to a website for the most popular baby names, such as[| this one]. Have students locate the year they were born and then scan with their eyes to find their own name.
 * 2) Using the Find command, have students figure out if their name made the top 100 and if so, how popular their name was for that particular year.
 * 3) Discuss the differences between scanning with their eyes and using the Find command.
 * 4) Allow students free time to use/play with the Find command.


 * Assessment**:
 * 1) With a checklist, circulate among students and request them to use the Find command for the names of their friends, siblings, or parents.
 * 2) If desired, have students navigate to a particular year and scan only with their eyes to find their own name.

**__Mini lesson for the wee scallywags: skimming (Grades 3 - 7)__**
 * Objectives** (the learners will be able to):
 * identify at least two strategies for skimming
 * practice their skimming skills
 * gain confidence in their online reading abilities
 * improve their ability to efficiently gather information online


 * Activating Prior Knowledge**:
 * 1) On a large screen, put up a high-interest website for students. As students begin to read, start scrolling too quickly through the remainder of the page.
 * 2) As they protest, ask them how they could gather further information from the page and/or determine if it was something they wanted to keep reading.
 * 3) Discuss instances where they might want to use this skill.


 * Acquiring New Knowledge**:
 * 1) Have students select a book of their choice from either the [|International Children's Digital Library] or [|Tumblebooks].
 * 2) Set a timer for 1 minute and ask students to learn as much as they can from the text of the eBook. When the timer goes off they must shrink their open page to the bottom of their screen.
 * 3) Discuss strategies students used to gather information quickly. These may include quickly clicking through all of the pages, deciphering images, reading a few lines off each page, or reading only the first few words.
 * 4) Write all of the students' strategies on a flip chart or type onto a Word document.


 * Applying New Learning**:
 * 1) Have all students stand up from their computers and rotate to a new computer.
 * 2) At their new station, have students enlarge the screen their classmate had previously shrunk. Set the timer for 1 minute.
 * 3) After the timer goes off, pair up students and have them discuss what they gathered from the book they just looked at and what strategies they used to skim the text.


 * Assessment**:
 * 1) Next week, have students search for blogs they would like to follow. Circulate among students and observe their ability to scroll through the sites and apply some of the strategies previously identified. Review with individual students as required.
 * 2) For a whole class informal assessment, again pull up a high-interest website and scroll too quickly. By listening to their oral reading and asking questions, determine if they have refined their ability to skim.