IELTS reading skills

The 3 skills of reading

My answer is that there are 3 specific skills in reading and that if you want to give yourself the best chance possible you need to be able to use all 3 of these skills. I have decided to use the words “scanning” and “skimming” for one very good reason. I want you to understand that these are specific skills that need to be learnt. The skills are:

close reading of the text: this is when you look at a sentence (or sometimes a paragraph) and try and understand what it means exactly so you can answer a question. You will do this for every question before you decide on the answer.

scanning: this is when you look for a particular word or phrase in the text. You do this before  you start reading closely. All you are doing is trying to find where the answer in the text is, not what the answer is.

skimming: this is reading the whole text (or a large part of it) so you understand what the text is about generally. You do this for two reasons:

1. it helps you scan more efficiently: if you skim first you save yourself time as you know which part of text to look at first
2. it also helps you when you read the text closely. If you skim first, you are much more likely to “guess” the right answer between two different choices just because you understand the whole text.

Do you have to use all 3 skills?

Short answer: No. Different learners work in different ways. What works for me may not work for you.

Should you try and use all 3 skills?

Yes. It gives you the best chance of finding the right answer: you don’t need to rely on luck so much. The more you understand the text, the better your answers will be. IELTS is about reading and understanding. IELTS is not a puzzle where you try and match bits of text with questions.

Isn’t it a waste of time to read the whole text first?

No. I don’t believe skimming wastes any time at all – if you do it well. Think of it like this. If you don’t skim first, it is like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle without looking at the picture. It’s possible of course, just harder. If you do skim and understand the whole text generally, then you have the big picture of the jigsaw in your head: you are much more likely to make the right connections.

Are you sure? Can’t I just look at the questions and “find” the answer?

You can and some teachers teach this approach. I believe it to be bad advice.

1. If you skim the text first for general meaning, you will find answers more quickly. If you don’t skim the text first, each answer will take you longer. You waste time that way.
2. It is true that few questions ask you to understand the whole text. However, there will be times when you have 2 possible answers and you need to “guess”. Put simply, if you understand the whole text you will normally guess better.

Is it the same for all questions?

Yes and no. All the question types test all 3 skills. You just tend to use the skills in different ways for different types of question.

I still prefer my way

Fine. Horses for courses as we say. Suit yourself. I would just add that these are skills and skills take time to learn. This means that it may not work first time, you need to practise and practise well if you want to learn the skills and read better. Don’t give up if it doesn’t work first time.

My answer

None of the answers in the questionnaire is quite right by itself: you need something different. You should try and use a combination of skills, not just one.

If you chose the “key words” option, please think again. This is extremely dangerous advice and likely to make you go wrong unless you are very careful. Read my lesson on key words to see what I mean.