Pre Reading Activities: skimming and scanning with a text from Wikipedia about world-famous architect Renzo Piano.

1. PRE READING
READING COMPREHENSION CLASS

2. TEXT
• The activities in this class were designed in
accordance with the following text:
RENZO PIANO: a biography in Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renzo_Piano

3. OVERALL OBJECTIVES:
• Familiarize yourself with the text.
• Get the gist.
• Determine the topic.
• Determine the text organization.
• Identify unknown words to look up in the dictionary
• Add the words you find useful to your personal
glossary.
• Scan for numbers and proper nouns.

4. PREVIEWING
• Look at the text. Observe the text as an outsider.
• Look at the
title, headings, subtitles, pictures, graphs, and all
visual aids. Analize them.
• Recall any knowledge you already have about the
topic.
• Think about this topic and make suitable questions.
What would you like to find out? What would you
like the author to tell you about that topic?
• What kind of information does a biography typically
include?

5. WHAT DO YOU KNOW
ABOUT RENZO PIANO?

6. DESCRIBE THE PICTURES

7. SKIMMING
• Read the full text quickly, without stopping. Don’t worry
about what you don’t understand. Focus on general
ideas.
• ACTIVITIES: Identify the following items:
a. cognates: transparent words from one language to
another (words that are written similarly in English and
Spanish).
Eg: biography, architect, Milano.
b. typographic changes: words in
bold, italics, underlined, etc.
Eg: San Giovanni Rotondo

8. SKIMMING
c. repetition: words that share the same root even if
they have different endings, and are repeated
throughout the text.
Eg: was (to be, past) also (también) museum
(museo) remains (permanecer) work (trabajo) design
(diseño) project (proyecto) has (tener) buildings
(edificios) in (en) as (como) they (ellos) or (o) and (y)

9. SKIMMING
d. numbers: stated in numbers or words.
Eg: 14: the day he was born
e. dictionary words (glossary): useful words to look up
in the dictionary and memorize.
Eg: workshop (n. taller) skyscraper (n. rascacielos)
engineer (n. ingeniero) early (adj. temprano, primero)
such as (con. Tal como) through (prep. A través de)
as well as (con. Así como) well (adv. Bien) venue (n.
recinto) kind (n. tipo) largEST (el más - grande)

10. SCANNING
• Read the text quickly to find specific information.
• Think about the words you want to find in English.
• Quickly identify the suitable paragraph or section of
text.
• Stop reading once you’ve found what you were
looking for.

11. SCANNING ACTIVITIES
• Scan all the numbers in the text: say what they refer
to:
Eg: 14, 1937: refer to the day and year of Renzo
Piano’s birth
• Scan all the proper nouns and say what they refer
to:
Eg: Genoa: is an Italian city, where Piano was born.