Conscious comprehension comes through activation. By asking questions and then using superreading & dipping for for the answers.
People generally read novels for enjoyment and for those the preferred approach is Photoread and then straight to rapid reading. Yes you will have conscious comprehension of the books through activation and rapid reading.
Yes looking through the book is the way it works. What you are doing is giving the information to your other than conscious mind to process the text/information prior to looking for conscious comprehension of the text. Because the information is already in the other than conscious mind we find we can have a faster conscious comprehension of the text/information as a result.
Alex