ELT365 · Day 168 — Reading for specific information: scanning

Idea — Scanning means hunting a text for a particular item — a date, a name, a price — while ignoring everything else. The eyes move fast and non-linearly, the opposite of careful reading.

Example — Finding a film's start time on a listings page, you scan for numbers and skip all prose.

Try — Hand out a timetable or menu and ask three find-it questions. Tell learners to race; speed is the point of scanning.

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