Pre-Reading

By pre-reading we mean the activity that takes place before you begin to read a new passage (the prefix pre means before). Pre-reading includes previewing, scanning, and predicting. Your background knowledge will determine how much you already know about the subject of your reading. Looking at the pictures and reading the photo captions and subtitles (all part of previewing) will give you an idea of what the article is about. Scanning or skimming over the paragraphs and focusing on the first few words of each paragraph is also very useful.

VOCABULARY

preview (v.) to look at something in advance
scan (v.) to look over quickly
predict (v.) to offer an opinion on what might happen in the future
caption (n.) the title beneath a picture or photo in a text
boldface (v.) to highlight a word in a document by making it darker
background (n.) the environment or setting against which something is displayed
knowledge (n.) learning; understanding gained through study