What is it?

Photoreading is a technique which uses a “whole mind” approach to studying, so it differs from “speed reading”. It also works with any type of subject matter, so it is a very flexible technique.

Basic outline of technique

Prepare

Before you start on endevcour you must have a purpose. With photoreading this means stating a definate desired outcome for reading. It may be that you want to understand the fundamentals of something so you won’t be lost in a conversation about the given subject. It may be that you want the answer to a specific problem you are working on. Whatever it is the first step is purpose.

Along with this step is conditioning yourself to be in a state of “relaxed alertness”. This really is a state of calmness, not letting your mind race ahead of itself. An analogy would be when children are playing, not a care in the world!

Preview

This step, as the name suggests, is previewing the given subject. Think of it as an inverted pyramid, where learning on a granular level would be the tip of the pyramid and a complete covering of the subject would be the inverted base of the pyramid. A working from the whole to the the parts.

First you survey the material. Again this is not concentrating on the granular detail, really browsing through pages, letting the subjects key words or trigger words register. Trigger words anchor themselves so later on they and the subject become more real. About five minutes is given for a book. You look at the index page, chapter headings, page headings, and scanning over paragraphs. This stage gives you a mental structure of the material

Photoread

The photoreading technique begins again with the alert relaxed state of mind. Now you adjust your vision to the “photo focus” state. This means focusing your eyes to the optimum focus for the whole of the page/pages. A sort of “looking through” the page. The theory is that the brain performs a pattern matching function and recognises the words and content on the page. You spend literally 1 second on each page, so obviously you may conscioulsy know nothing of what you just looked at.

Activate

This is where you bring to the conscious awareness what you have covered. Activation is where you restimulate your mind with questions while exploring parts of what you have read that become more attractive to you. You then “super read” these, scanning down each page or column. When you find an area that indicates, then you “dip into” it and read it at your normal pace. Other techniques are used at this stage, one of them is mind mapping.

Rapid read

This final step is the closest to speed reading, rapidly moving the eyes along each line or sets of lines.

Benefits

Not only are there obvious benefits are getting through any information at many times faster therefore saving lost of time during the day and sending productivity through the roof, but others such as improving your memory, sharpening your concentration, reading easier with better understanding. Other manifestations such as improved intuition have also been reported.

Here is a news report giving an overview of photoreading:

Resources

• The Photoreading course
• The Photoreading Whole Mind System Book