Comprehension skills

Skimming/Scanning
We skim a text in order to obtain an accurate idea of what a text is about as quickly as possible. How to skim? 1. Read the title and headings. 2. Read the first sentence of each paragraph. 3. Read the whole of the first and last paragraph. In order to find specific information in a passage, we scan the passage. When we scan we do not need to start searching from the beginning and read all the way to the end.

Scanning Practice
Weird and Wonderful Mammals From 54 to 38 million years ago, during the Eocene period, the mammals developed rapidly. Those which had shared the Earth with the dinosaurs continued to survive and were joined by many new species. Before long, a new set of weird and wonderful beasts had evolved to take advantage of the food and living spaces once used by the dinosaurs. We have found out all this from the evidence of fossils. Many of the best Eocene fossils come from North America and Africa. These fossils tell us that some of the new mammal designs were very successful and existed for many millions of years. But other creatures came and went in a much shorter time. Some fossils show the remains of animals in which have no equivalents today, making it difficult for us to imagine what they were like. Quite early on in the Age of Mammals, all the main groups of mammals had appeared. These groups are called orders. During the Eocene, there were 25 orders, perhaps more. Nowadays, there are about 17 orders. So you can see that some of those early mammal designs obviously didn t survive, whilst others gradually evolved into the mammals that live in the world today. From Mighty Mammals of the Past, by John Sidworthy

Questions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. When was the Eocene period? Where are the best Eocene fossils found? Name two other places where Eocene fossils have been found. Were all the new mammal designs successful? When did all the main orders of mammals appear? How many of the Eocene orders of mammals did not survive to the present day?