Purpose: 

To practice scanning skills 

Preparation time:

10 minutes

Materials:

Reading passage 

Preparation:

Read through the passage ahead of time and generate scanning questions.

Procedure:

1. Explain the concept of scanning to a student. Some non-readers think that scanning is “cheating.” Point out that scanning is really more common than reading every word. Discuss situations where scanning is the appropriate reading strategy.
2. For lower-level readers, devise a scavenger hunt activity. Choose a piece of reading material. (Real-life materials such as ads, newspapers and forms work well for this.) Pick a word that occurs in the text. Give the student a time limit (two minutes works well) and have him/her scan through the text and circle the word every time it occurs. Emphasize speed!
3. For higher-level readers, have them scan for facts. Choose a meaningful text (e.g., menus, newspaper, ads, etc.). Establish a question and have the student scan for the answer (How much are the eggs? What time does Stuart Little play at the Mall of America?).  Again, emphasize speed.
4. Students who are preparing for tests such as the GED should be encouraged to look at the questions at the end of the reading passage and then scan through the text for the answers.    
5. Scanning is especially useful for readers who are using the Internet. Because there is so much information on a Web site, students need to practice quickly finding the useful information and ignoring the rest. Practicing scanning while surfing the Internet is a useful and valuable activity.