The Use of Skimming and Scanning in Reading Comprehension at

SMA Gajah Mada 3 Palembang

Ressy Novasyari
The University of Palembang
[email protected]

Putri Maisaroh Lastari

The University of Palembang

Abstract : In our daily lives, in homes, in school and on the streets, to read is
necessary for livelihood and survival. It means that, we learn something by reading
or we can say that reading is the central to the learning process to know something.
Reading is a key towards civilizations progress. Since the invention of alphabet as a
means of written communications, reading ability has becomes essential for
character building and national development. Nowadays, many children are lazy to
read. They interested in watching TV, listening music, playing games and hanging
out with their friends. There are some factors that caused the student reading ability
poor. The factors are classified into two internal and external factors. The internal
factors come from studentt themselves such as motivation, and knowledge. The
external factor come from teacher, school facilities parents and the condition that
influences the student in learning English. A teacher can use several techniques for
their teaching in reading comprehension. The techniques are skimming and
scanning.

Keywords : Skimming, Scanning and Reading Comprehension

Introduction
English has been viewed as the most important language that should be mastered by
people from all over the world. This language is used as the most priority language to deliver
the messages and bridge the gaps. Almost all aspects of our daily life is related to this
language. As Coleman (2010) describes the important roles of English in some fields like
education, tourist, information, and culture. Therefore the needs of learning English is
growing all over the world. And now the most important job for educators is to prepare any
tools or technique to support the demands of the language learners.
Nowadays, many children are lazy to read. They interested in watching TV, listening
music, playing games and hanging out with their friends. In our daily lives, in homes, in
school and on the streets, to read is necessary for livelihood and survival. It means that, we
learn something by reading or we can say that reading is the central to the learning process to
know something. Reading is a key towards civilizations progress. Since the invention of
alphabet as a means of written communications, reading ability has becomes essential for
character building and national development.
Reading is one of the four language skills that must be mastered by the students
in learning a language. It’s essential for having reading ability, because we can
transfer and develop science, technology, and culture by reading. We can also get
information by reading. In real life reading is often part of series of activities,
including locating texts and presenting material in oral and in written. Reading is
an activity of process of transferring or decoding form the written to oral form. The
fundamental goal for any reading activity is understand the language, include
comprehending (Kustario, 1988:1).
Grabe & Stoller (2002: 9) state that reading are the ability to drawing meaning from
printed page and interpreted this information appropriately. It means comprehending
and interpreting the information of the text are important. It implied that students
needed to learn a considerable amount of information from a text. Mikulecky (2004, p.240)
state that the teaching of English in Indonesia is focused on reading skill.
Gebhard (1996, p.202) states that skimming and scanning techniques are hoped to
help students to comprehend the reading, because skimming is a technique to get general
information of a paragraph text quickly, and scanning is a technique to get specific
information quickly without reading the whole text.

Literature Review
The Definition of Reading
There are many definitions of reading that are stated by experts Reinking
and Scheiner in Kustaryo (1988) define reading is an active cognitive process of
interesting with print and monitoring comprehension to establish meaning. Sukirah
adds that reading is combination of word recognition and intellect and emotion
interrelated with prior knowledge to understand the message communicated.
(Kustaryo,1988:2).
Reading is a complex information processing skill in which the reader interacts
with the text in order to create meaningful discourse. The reader is an active, problem
solving individual who coordinates a number of skill and strategies to gain
comprehension as he/she read as a reading material. The goal of reading program is to
develop fluency where independent readers set their own goals and strategies for
reading. And the reading activities are suggested by the goals of the readers and by
specific characteristics of the reading passage. Reading tasks must be realistic in
terms of both language use and students abilities. (Silberstein, 1984:12). Reading is a process
employed by an individual in order to understand what an author says (Brown, 1994, p.271).

The Definition of Reading Comprehension

Hornby, (1974:711) explain that reading is
“the act of one who reads; knowledge, especially of books; the ways in which
something is interpreted”. While comprehension is “the act of understanding, the
ability of the mind to understand”.
Klinger, Vaughn, and Boardman (2007, p.8) define that reading comprehension is a
complex process which involves many components through interactions between readers and
their prior knowledge along with the variables of the text, like readers’ interest to text or their
understanding of text types.
Reading comprehension is to understand a text that is read or the process of
constructing meaning from a text. (Decant, 1971:312). Based on explanation above, reading
comprehension should be mastered by students in order to understand what is the story about
and recall their prior knowledge and teacher should teach their students all aspects in reading
in order to achieve the goal of reading.
According to Smith in Ashar (2007:22), there are four categories of
comprehension levels:
a. Literal Comprehension
Literal comprehension refers to the main idea, details and sequence. The
literal level of comprehension is fundamental to all reading skill at any levels because
a reader must understand what the writers said before draw inference or make an
evaluation. In other word, this category requires a lower level thinking skill than the
others. According to Quinn & Applegate in Ashar (2007:22), Literal comprehension
requires that students recall what they have read from the text. Students use the skill
of locating information from the text to answer literal comprehension questions, as
well as their own rote memory skills. Literal recall students’ opportunities to discuss
ideas related to the text. Literal reading strategies include (a) word recognition, (b)
vocabulary meaning, (c) finding important information in text, and (d) identification
of setting, characters, problems, key events, and outcomes as presented in the text.
b. Interpretive Comprehension
Interpretive reading is based on a literal understanding in the text, students
must use information from various part of the text and combine them for additional
understanding. The students have to put together two piece of information that is from
different part of the text.
Interpretive reading comprehension includes thinking skills in which reader
identify ideas and meaning that are not stated explicit in the text. So, the reader may
make generalization, drawing conclusion, predicting outcomes, determine cause and
effect relationship, identify motivation and make comparison. In other words,
interpretative reading requires the reader to understand not only what the author
means. At this level teachers can ask more challenging question such asking students
to the following:
1) Re-arrange the ideas or topics discussed in the text
2) Explain the authors’ purpose of writing
3) Summarize the main idea when this not explicitly stated on the text
4) Select conclusion which can be deduced from the text they have read.
c. Critical Reading
Critical reading is reading with an awareness of similarities and differences between what the
reader has already seen and what he is seeing in the work is reading critically. Critical such as
expression, overstatement, ides, opinions repetition and values of an author.
d. Creative Reading
Creative reading is reading with awareness of the stimuli of imaginative
through present in reading materials. The stimuli may be in the form of problems
sensed of new idea or ways of expressions. Creative reading requires the readers to
use their imaginations, it requires readers feeling for the text and subject. The answer
is not found in the text, they come strictly from the readers while no personal
responses are incorrect. They cannot be unfounded, they must relate to the content of
the text and reflect a literal understand of the material.
Comprehension means relating to what we do not understand or new
information, to what we already know (Eskey, 1986: 15). Therefore, in
comprehending a text, the reader relates new information from the text being
read to his previous knowledge that he has stored in his mind. Smith (1982: 15)
states that comprehension in reading as a matter of “making sense” of text, of
relating written language to what we know already and to what we want to know.
Because of the comprehension of reading, the students can get the information
transferred by the writer.

The Concept of Skimming Technique

Gebhard (1996, p.203) states that skimming is quickly reading to find the
general ideas of a text. When you read the newspaper, you're probably not reading it
word-by-word, instead you're scanning the text. Skimming is done at a speed three to
four times faster than normal reading.

Aebersold & Field (1997:76) have given a more detailed definition of skimming and
scanning. Skimming is defined as a quick, superficial reading of a text in order to get the gist
of it. Although there is some question about exactly what readers do when they skim, it does
appear to be a strategy for getting clues to the main ideas, divisions, points, or steps in an
argument.

The Concept of Scanning Technique

Gebhard (1996, p.203) states that scanning is a technique quick reading to
locate specific information. For examples, we scan telephone books, catalogs,
dictionaries, basically any source in which we need to locate specific information. You search
for key words or ideas. In most cases, you know what you're looking for, so you're
concentrating on finding a particular answer. Scanning involves moving your eyes quickly
down the page seeking specific words and phrases. Scanning is also used when you first find
a resource to determine whether it will answer your questions. Once you've scanned the
document, you might go back and skim it.
According to Maxwell (1970: 226) scanning, which is defined as the ability to locate
specific facts and details quickly, is regarded as a desirable reading skill and is taught in most
developmental reading courses. Scanning is quickly reading to find the specific information
Brown (2001:308) state that, scanning is quickly searching for some particular piece or
pieces of information in a text. By scanning, a reader mean glancing rapidly through a
text either a text either to search a specific piece of information (e.g. name, date) or to
get an initial impression of whether the text is suitable for a given purpose.
Scanning speed reading technique is aimed at obtaining information and
specific facts, so jump over the parts that do not fit the purpose of reading and to the
point that we were looking for. Mikulecky and Jeffries (1998:290). According to Mikulecky
and Jeffries (1998:301), states how to scan are follow:
1. The introduction or preface of a text;
2. The first or last paragraphs of chapters;
3. The concluding or summarizing chapter of a text;
4. The book index.
5. State the specific information you are looking for
6.Try to anticipate how the answer will appear and what clues you
might use to help you locate the answer. For example, if you were
looking for a certain date, you would quickly read the paragraph
looking only for numbers.
7.Use headings and any other aids that will help you identify which
sections might contain the information you are looking for.
8. Selectively read and skip through sections of the passage.

Conclusion
Sarwono (2003:2), scanning is a technique used to find specific information that we
need without read the whole of the text. based on some theories above, the researcher can be
conclude that scanning technique is effective to improve the students’ reading
comprehension. Where, by using scanning, the students can understand the meaning/context
of the text fastly. In scanning the students didn’t need to read all the text. But they only
focused on what their need of the text by using zigzag style. Beside of it, the
scanning technique is effective because the technique is easy to use for getting the
important points of the text.
Nunan (1999:251) points out that “skimming and scanning both involve fairly rapid
superficial reading and both are aimed at searching, rather than deep processing of the text or
reflection upon the content of the text”. Nuttall (1996) argues that scanning and skimming do
not remove the need for careful reading, but they enable the reader to select parts of the text,
that are worth spending time on. The use of Skimming and Scanning Technique in improving
the students’ reading comprehension can help the students to read and make the students to
enjoyed a lesson.
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