1. Comprehensive and Innovative
Reading Skills Instruction with
Reading Explorer!

2. 20 strategies covered in
Reading Explorer
1. Making predictions and
hypotheses
2. Previewing a text using headings
and visual support
3. Reading for overall gist
4. Understanding main ideas
5. Making links between main ideas
and supporting information
6. Identifying specific details
7. Understanding referencing
8. Guessing meaning of vocabulary
from context
9. Differentiating fact and opinion
10.Recognizing word parts, affixes
11.Verifying true/false statements
12.Detecting an author’s purpose
13.Understanding paraphrases
14.Inferring information, opinion or
intention
15.Reorganizing ideas from a text
16.Classifying concepts in a text
17.Sequencing information in a
process or timeline
18.Matching textual information with a
map or diagram
19.Recognizing relationships such as
cause/effect
20.Summarizing key ideas

4. 7 essential reading skills
1. Skimming for gist
2. Scanning for detail (factual)
3. Scanning for detail (negative
factual)
4. Understanding sequence
5. Understanding inference
6. Understanding reference
7. Guessing vocabulary from
context

5. 7 essential reading skills
1. Skimming for gist
2. Scanning for detail (factual)
3. Scanning for detail (negative
factual)
4. Understanding sequence
5. Understanding inference
6. Understanding reference
7. Guessing vocabulary from
context

6. Skimming
• We skim to get an overall idea (the gist) of what
a text is basically about
• To do this, we look quickly through a text
• We look for clues to the overall theme, e.g.
textual features like titles, sub-headings,
captions – as well as visuals.
• We often read the first or last paragraph, and we
may look quickly through the rest of the text.
Here’s an example…

7. Skimming

8. Skim the title

9. Skim the first paragraph

10. Skimming
• The title suggests the article is
about the effect of olive oil on
your health, or ‘life’
• The picture shows a traditional
way of making olive oil, and the
caption mentions ‘1,000 years’
• The first paragraph refers to the
history of olive oil.
From a skim of the first page we can
guess what the article is about…

11. Skimming

12. Skimming and Prediction
• When we quickly skim a text, we usually make
predictions about what we will learn from it.
• In this case, we can predict that we’ll learn about the
history and health benefits of olive oil.
• As we read on through the text, we can confirm whether
our predictions are correct.

13. 7 essential reading skills
1. Skimming for gist
2. Scanning for detail (factual)
3. Scanning for detail (negative
factual)
4. Understanding sequence
5. Understanding inference
6. Understanding reference
7. Guessing vocabulary from
context

14. Skimming and Scanning
• Skimming gives us a general idea of what
the text is about
• Scanning is when we search a text to find
more specific information – usually key
details like dates, names, places, etc.
Here’s an example…

16. Scanning
• The first stage in any scanning for detail
question is to decide: what are we
scanning for?
• In other words, what specific information
do we want to find out?

17. • It’s helpful to highlight key words or phrases in
the question.
• There are three key points in this question:
‘When did… begin?’;
‘cultivation of olive trees’;
‘around the Mediterranean Sea’
• The next stage is to find the relevant section. For
example, we could scan for numbers, like ‘4,000’

19. • In this case, the answer is in the first paragraph: Olive
tree cultivation began in about 4,000 B.C. (the first olive
oil was made 2,000 years later)
• Next we need to decide which option is closest.
• It’s important to read the options carefully. The options
refer to ‘years ago’, not ‘B.C.’. So the answer must be
C. 6,000 years ago.
EMBEDDED CRITCAL THINKING IN EVERY QUESTION

20. 7 essential reading skills
1. Skimming for gist
2. Scanning for detail (factual)
3. Scanning for detail (negative
factual)
4. Understanding sequence
5. Understanding inference
6. Understanding reference
7. Guessing vocabulary from
context

21. Scanning: Negative factual
• Some factual questions ask you to decide
which option is NOT true, or NOT
mentioned in the text.
• First step is to look for key words in the
question – in this case, ‘use of olive oil’

22. • Next, we need to scan for the relevant section,
or sections, of the text.
• The heading on the second page mentions
‘benefits’ of olive oil, which is similar to ‘uses’
• We then find a reference to ‘a variety of uses’
• We can then scan for specific words that relate
to the answer options.

23. The only option that is NOT mentioned is…
d. paint

24. 7 essential reading skills
1. Skimming for gist
2. Scanning for detail (factual)
3. Scanning for detail (negative
factual)
4. Understanding sequence
5. Understanding inference
6. Understanding reference
7. Guessing vocabulary from
context

25. Understanding sequence
• Some questions ask you to put steps or
events in order, or to decide which thing
happened first, or last, in a sequence.
• This can relate to steps in a process, or
events in a timeline.

26. • Again, the first stage is to identify the key words
in the question. In this case, we need to find the
first step in the process of olive oil production.
• Second stage is to locate the relevant section of
the text.
• This paragraph refers to the ‘process of
producing the oil’
• We can also see words that introduce stages.

27. • The text says:
• The closest option is therefore:
b: crushing the whole olives
• Note that the text uses slightly different wording from the
option. Some questions require you to make a
connection between different word forms.

28. 7 essential reading skills
1. Skimming for gist
2. Scanning for detail (factual)
3. Scanning for detail (negative
factual)
4. Understanding sequence
5. Understanding inference
6. Understanding reference
7. Guessing vocabulary from
context

29. Understanding inference
• Some questions ask you about information
or an idea that is not explicitly mentioned in
the text.
• In other words, you need to ‘read between
the lines’ to identify the writer’s meaning.

30. • Again, the first stage is to identify the key
words in the question. In this case, we are
looking for studies of olive oil.
• Second stage is to use key words or
paraphrases to locate the relevant section.

31. • When we read the paragraph in detail, we
learn that the studies describe the healthy
effects of olive oil.
• We also learn these studies are helping to
change people’s understanding of olive oil,
including people outside the
Mediterranean.

32. • We can infer from the text that the writer is
using studies of olive oil to help explain its
popularity in other parts of the world.
• So the closest answer is ‘a.’

33. 7 essential reading skills
1. Skimming for gist
2. Scanning for detail (factual)
3. Scanning for detail (negative
factual)
4. Understanding sequence
5. Understanding inference
6. Understanding reference
7. Guessing vocabulary from
context

34. Understanding reference
• Reference questions ask you to look at
specific pronouns (she, it, this, those etc)
or other reference words (some, there,
ones, etc) in the passage.
• You then need to decide which noun or
noun phrase the reference word relates to.
Here’s an example from Unit 2:

35. Reading Explorer 2: Unit 2A

36. • Reference questions give you the line
number, so the scanning stage is easy!
• When you find the word, read the sentence
it occurs in, and also the sentence before it.

37. • Look for key words or paraphrases from the
question.
• In this case, the answer options all mention
‘idea.’ So we should look in the text for an ‘idea’
or words that relate to an ‘idea.’
• The first part of the sentence mentions ‘thought’:
• It also mentions ‘they’ – so first we need to work
out what ‘they’ means!

38. • In the preceding sentence, we can see that
‘they’ refers to male humpbacks:
• We can also see that ‘this’ in line 25 refers to the
previous (or old) idea that male humpbacks sang
to attract females.

39. So the best answer is:
b. the idea that male humpbacks sing to
attract females

40. 7 essential reading skills
1. Skimming for gist
2. Scanning for detail (factual)
3. Scanning for detail (negative
factual)
4. Understanding sequence
5. Understanding inference
6. Understanding reference
7. Guessing vocabulary from
context

41. Understanding Vocabulary
• As you read a text, you may find unfamiliar
words and phrases – or words that are used in
a different way to what you expect.
• If you always refer to a dictionary for the
meaning, your reading speed will slow down.
• Instead, you may be able to guess the meaning
using context, or your knowledge of word parts.
Here’s an example from Unit 2:

42. • You are probably familiar with the words ‘thanks’
and ‘to,’ but what do they mean in the text?
• First, use the line reference to find the words

43. • The phrase Thanks to starts the sentence, so it’s
probably connecting the sentence with the
previous one.
• The previous sentence tells us about a reduction
in whale numbers, from 125,000 to 6,000.
• Thanks to is followed by ‘laws against hunting’
• The rest of the sentence tells us that the whale
population is now about 30,000.

44. • From the context we can guess that ‘thanks to’
connects a cause (laws against hunting) with an
effect or a result (the rise in whale population
from 6,000 to 30,000).

45. So we can guess that the phrase ‘thanks
to’ is closest in meaning to:
A. As a result of

46. 7 essential reading skills
1. Skimming for gist
2. Scanning for detail (factual)
3. Scanning for detail (negative
factual)
4. Understanding sequence
5. Understanding inference
6. Understanding reference
7. Guessing vocabulary from
context

47. Summary of key steps
Remember that most reading skill questions
require the same basic steps:
1. Identify key words in the question (and in the
options, if it’s multiple-choice)
2. Locate the relevant section of the text by
scanning for the key words – or paraphrases of
the words.
3. Read that section in detail and think about the
writer’s meaning. Look for connections
between the information and ideas in the text.

48. Explore for academic success
and beyond!