Skimming/ Skim-reading - A Complete Lesson with Activities

This is a full lesson teaching how to skim-read a text, complete with all the activities you need to consolidate this skill.

What is the difference between skimming and scanning? When we skim-read, we read a text quickly to get the main idea (the gist). We want to find key information such as who the text is about, where they are and what is happening. On the other hand, scanning is where we read a text to find specific information such as the answer to a question. We still read quickly, but this time we are looking for something in particular.

This resource is a PowerPoint presentation which includes all the information and activities you need to teach children how to skim-read a text. It also includes a brief introduction to scanning by way of the plenary.

PLEASE CHECK THE NOTES SECTIONS - The notes section also includes teaching tips, ideas and further explanations.

The presentation includes:
√ Learning objective
√ Three success criteria
√ Starter activity - to assess current understanding of skim-reading
√ Teaching input - what does ‘skimming’ mean? What is the difference between skimming and scanning?
√ Examples of suitable questions for determining the gist of a text
√ Guided/ whole class consolidation activities
√ Six texts for skim-reading practice
√ All answer slides
√ Plenary - AFL - Intro to scanning

PLEASE NOTE - Please look at the ‘notes’ section of the PowerPoint for additional information about each slide. These include teaching tips, ideas and further explanations.

This lesson is also suitable for being delivered remotely through online learning with some slight adaptations. It could combine very well with platforms such as Pear Deck and Nearpod.