Skimming and Previewing (Reading)

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1  BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM

In education, the activity of reading is a matter that can not be abandoned. This is because most of the acquisition of knowledge do learners through reading activities. When linked with education programs in schools, reading plays a very important.

The ability to read faster is choosing the content of reading skills that should be read in accordance with the objectives relevant to the reader without wasting time to pursue other parts that are not needed. Because not every word printed in a book to be read, and not every detail word in a book to be learned. What is printed is not necessarily true and may not be worth while to read. What is important or not printed for us is determined by these considerations:

Is there information and ideas that are important and relevant to us? Is it consistent with our goal to read?

Indeed, sometimes we have to read a book as a whole, for example, the main handbook that should be studied in depth and we alone have not many know about that are discussed in the book. As for the other book, a part sometimes need to read more than one time in-depth, we adjust to our needs. However, there is another part that we should skip it, it would be useless because we read. Kick reading a very powerful tool to adjust our speed in reading and very effectively provide maximum results.

There are a wide variety of reading activities reading techniques. Selection of reading technique depends on the condition readings and the purpose of reading. There are two kinds of speed reading techniques of reading skimming and scanning, but in this paper, author just explain about skimming.

1.2  IDENTIFICATION OF THE PROBLEM

a.       What is previewing and skimming?

b.      Why we do preview and skim?

c.       How we do preview and skim?

1.3  PURPOSE OF THE WRITTEN

1.      To know the definition of previewing and skimming.

2.      To know the useful of preview and skim.

3.      To know steps to do preview and skim. 

CHAPTER II

THEORY

2.1 PREVIEWING

WHAT IS PREVIEWING?

Previewing means surveying a text quickly before you read it carefully. You preview when you want to get information. When you preview a text, look at the title and subtitles, picture and graphics, word in bold print or italics, and introductions.

Previewing is a common skills in our daily life. You can preview of kinds reading material. For example, you might preview :

1.      The newspaper by reading headlines

2.      A letter by looking at the envelope

3.      A new book by reading the front and back cover

WHY PREVIEW?

Preview can help you make decisions. It can help you decide:

a.       Which articles to read in the newspaper

b.      Whether to open the letter (it might be junk mail you would throw out)

c.       If the book is interesting, and if you want to read it

In the same way, previewing can help you with your reading. When you preview a passage, you get some ideas about it. This way, your brain is already thinking about the topic when you start reading. You can understand better and read faster. Previewing can help you with all of your reading. It is particularly helpful at school, for reading assignments, and for tests.

Previewing text helps to engage and develop the background knowledge for students of all ages. It aids students in making predictions about the text and can pique their interest, thereby increasing their motivation to read. In addition, previewing allows students to focus their reading on key information. Previewing may provide clues about the text structure, preparing the reader to mentally organize the new information. After previewing, the student is ready to better comprehend the text. This is particularly true for students who have limited literacy skills.

Previewing a text should not give away too much of the content of the text. Students should be reading purposefully, so there should be some "mystery" about what is in the text.

When previewing text with a small group or with the whole class, a teacher can be alerted to misconceptions students may hold, and be able to address those prior to reading.

HOW DO YOU PREVIEW?

When you preview, you ask yourself question about the passage.The questions you ask depend on many things: what you are reading, why you are reading, and what you need to find out.

Some common previewing questions:

1.      What is it? (Is it an email message, a news article, a piece of fiction?)

2.      Who wrote it? Who is it for?

3.      What is it about?

4.      How long is it?

5.      Is it difficult or easy to read?

6.      Is it interesting or useful?

7.      What will come next?

EXAMPLE OF PREVIEW

1. Re : Your Message 

    Heard Your message on my machine. Yes, let's get together 

    How about lunch . . . 

a.       What is it?

b.      Who wrote it? Who is it for?

c.       What will come next?

Explanation

a.       We can tell from the way the writing starts (Re:) that’s probably an e-mail message.

b.      We can also guess that this person is writing to a friend because it is very informal. (An incomplete sentence, and expressions such as let’s and how about…)

c.       This person will probably give a time and place for them to have a lunch together.

2.  Discuss these questions in pairs or groups.

It’s the 21^st Century… Where’s My Robot?

a.       Look at the photo and the tittle of the reading. What will this reading be about ? This reading is about hosekeeper robot.

b.      This reading is about robots that are designed to do housework. What is housework? Do you think robots will ever able to do this kind of work? Housework is dashing, cleaning, vacuum, etc. Yes, I do.

2.2 SKIMMING

WHAT IS SKIMMING?

Skimming is an important reading skills. Skimming  is a method of rapidly moving the eyes over text with the purpose of getting only the main ideas and a general overview of the content. Skimming can usually be accomplished at about 1000 words per minute. You can skim a paragraph, an article, a dictionary, a web page, a textbook chapter, or a whole book. When you are skimming, you're probably not reading it word-by-word, instead you're scanning the text. People often skim when they are in hurry, have a lot to read, or need to review something you read previously. Skimming is used when you want to see if an article may be of interest in your research, find dates, names, and places or review graphs, tables, and charts.

There are four basic rules for skimming :

1.      Read about three to four times faster than your normal reading speed.

2.      Don’t try to understand more than about 50% of the material.

3.      Don’t worry about vocabulary that you don’t need understand.

4.      Don’t pay attentiom the details.

WHY SKIM?

Skimming is useful in three different situations :

a.       Pre-reading--Skimming is more thorough than simple previewing and can give a more accurate picture of text to be read later.

b.      Reviewing--Skimming is useful for reviewing text already read.

c.       Reading--Skimming is most often used for quickly reading material that, for any number of reasons, does not need more detailed attention.    

HOW DO YOU SKIM?

There are some strategies that can be used when skimming:

1.      Skimming to get an overall impression.

Skimming is useful when you want to survey a text to get a general idea of what it is about. In skimming you ignore the details and look for the main ideas. Main ideas are usually found in the first sentences of each paragraph and in the first and last paragraphs. It is also useful to pay attention to the organisation of the text.

2.      Skimming a text using first lines of paragraphs.

In most academic writing, the paragraph is a coherent unit, about one topic, connected to the previous and next paragraphs. Paragraphs are organised internally and the first sentence of each paragraph is often a summary of, or an introduction to, the paragraph. You can therefore get a good idea of the overall content of a text by reading the first sentence of each paragraph. This should help you get a feeling for the structure of the text. In many cases that will be enough, but if it isn't, you will now have a good idea of the structure of the text and you will find it easier to read in detail. Familiar texts are easier to read.

3.      Skimming a text using first and last paragraphs.

In most academic writing, the text is organised clearly with an introduction and a conclusion. The introduction gives you an idea of what the text is going to be about and the conclusion shows that this is what it has been about. You can therefore get a good idea of the overall content of a text by reading the first and last paragraphs of a text. This should help you get a feeling for the content of the text. In many cases that will be enough, but if it isn't, you will now have a good idea of the content of the text and you will find it easier to read in detail. Familiar texts are easier to read.

4.      Skimming a text, using section headings.

In some academic writing, the text is organised through the use of headings and sub-headings. You can therefore get a good idea of the overall content of a text by reading the headings and sub-headings first. This should help you get a feeling for the content and organisation of the text. In many cases that will be enough, but if it isn't, you will now have a good idea of the content of the text and you will find it easier to read in detail. Familiar texts are easier to read.

Here is the basic method of skimming which almost do by people :

a.       Read the title. It is the shortest possible summary of the content.

b.      Read headings, subheadings to find out what the text is about.

c.       Read the whole first paragraph (introduction).

d.      Read the first and last sentence of each paragraph.

e.       Look at the illustrations (pictures, charts, or graphs) to give you more information about the topic.

f.       Look out the keywords (italicized or boldface words or phrases).

g.      Read the whole last paragraph (conclusion).

EXAMPLE OF SKIMMING

There are robots that can do housework. Several vacuum cleaning robots are available. However, not many people buy these products. Why not? The main reason is cost. These robots are expensive. Another reason is that robot cleaners don’t always do a good job. A third reason is power. Most of these robots use batteries for power, and batteries do not last long without recharging.

 (From World Class Readings 1, by Bruce Roger, 2005)

The main idea of the text above is Why households robots are not popular today.

CHAPTER III

CONCLUSION

Previewing means surveying a text quickly before you read it carefully. You preview when you want to get information. Previewing text helps to engage and develop the background knowledge for students of all ages. It aids students in making predictions about the text and can pique their interest, thereby increasing their motivation to read. In addition, previewing allows students to focus their reading on key information. When you preview, you ask yourself question about the passage.The questions you ask depend on many things: what you are reading, why you are reading, and what you need to find out.

Skimming  is a method of rapidly moving the eyes over text with the purpose of getting only the main ideas and a general overview of the content. You can skim a paragraph, an article, a dictionary, a web page, a textbook chapter, or a whole book. When you are skimming, you're probably not reading it word-by-word, instead you're scanning the text. People often skim when they are in hurry, have a lot to read, or need to review something you read previously.