PhotoReading
omerkhan said:
Has anyone incorporated Photoreading into this or other "speed reading" type techniques?
I use PhotoReading on an occasional basis. In my opinion, it is strongly reminiscent of the Evelyn Wood "multiple read and recall" technique. This is where you read the material in a very rapid manner called structuring, and then perform a recall. Then you skim it and do additional recall. Then you read line by line and do additional recall. Finally, you do a quick once-over of the material stopping to read and recall any sections that are still not clear. PhotoReading replaces the structuring step with the technique of going into "PhotoFocus," which is a special way to focus your eyes on the page - actually
through the page - to do a very high-speed initial read of the material. (This is done after some initial structuring steps on the material.)
The book claims that some people can have some useful recall of the material even after only doing the PhotoReading step. This is called "spontaneous activation." I can't say that I have experienced this, at least in the ways it is described in the book, but by the same token, I may just not do it often enough to get to that point.
Some people regard PhotoReading as a gimmick, and claim that the PhotoFocus-PhotoReading step doesn't do anything at all. However, I can say that after doing the PhotoReading step, I do seem to recall more in the subsequent reading steps. Therefore, I think
something is going on there.
The way PhotoReading and/or Evelyn Wood can save you time is that you can read something several times at varying but high rates of speed and still take less time overall than slow, once-through reading - and usually with equal or better comprehension. However, getting to that point and staying there takes regular practice.
In addition to that, many books aren't worth reading at any depth. It is better to find that out by doing an initial structuring plus one or more high-speed reads than by slogging through it line by line.
Finally, some books have good parts and bad parts. It is a better use of time to locate the good parts as quickly as possible and focus only on them rather than slogging through the whole book at the same speed.
At first blush, you might think these techniques are only useful for non-fiction, but they can help you read fiction more quickly as well. First, with practice, your line-by-line reading rate will improve. Second, you can accelerate to higher rates to skim through particularly tedious passages, and then slow down again when you want to. Finally, when you leave a book for an extended period of time. You can do one or more high-speed reads up to where you left off in order to get back into the story.
Hope this helps.
