Systematic drill in skimming for children who have mastered the mechanics of reading¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 6 claims (2 for, 4 mixed) · 1 study (1 causal), q2 · 1 of 1 report an effect size · 6 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The authors recommend that, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, systematic drill in skimming is desirable for children who have mastered the mechanics of reading and regularly use reading to acquire knowledge. They suggest practice in skimming might profitably be given in the public school, possibly in the upper grades after children have sufficiently mastered careful word-by-word reading.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Children must first have mastered the mechanics of ordinary careful word-by-word reading
• Reading must be used regularly as a tool for knowledge acquisition

Constraints¶

• The recommendation is offered in the absence of evidence to the contrary and rests on a small study of six college-trained adults; the authors call for extension to children of different pedagogical and mental levels

Target Learners¶

• upper-grade elementary school children
• adult readers

Target Learning Goals¶

• flexible reading rate matched to purpose
• efficient skimming for gist

Claims¶

• Forcing readers to skim at unusually high prescribed rates makes reproduction very poor and the process disagreeable [~W]
• Individual differences in skimming speed are large even among college-trained readers, with one observer skimming nearly three times the pace of another [~W]
• Knowing that reproduction will be demanded slows reading rate across all readers and methods [~W]
• Skimming is the fastest of five reading modes, roughly 0.13-0.14 seconds per word versus 0.22-0.35 for normal and maximal silent and aloud reading [+W]
• Skimming rate correlates strongly with normal silent reading rate (r = +0.71) [+W]
• Skimming speed increases across the later pages of multi-page texts [~W]

Related Strategies¶

• Pre-reading: Skim a Book Systematically
• Skimming And Scanning

Examples¶

-

Key Sources¶

• Whipple, G. M., & Curtis, J. N. (1914). Preliminary Investigation of Skimming in Reading. The Journal of Educational Psychology. https://eric.ed.gov/?q=preliminary+investigation+of+skimming+in+reading