Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ PhotoReading, Memory Optimizer Activating???

Ok I think I'm a little closer but now you have me confused on what to put as my purpose. That is one of the important parts that I seem to be doing wrong. If you would would you please clearify it some more like how do I know what I want in the book like I know what I want but when I read a book it's because I want a whole lot of things like lots and lots and lots of things. so I don't know how to select a good purpose for them. The other thing is alex when you photoread these posts do you leave time for the information to incubate or do you just go strait to activating it? Thank you for all your help so far
whitehair

Normally when I used regular reading there was just some vague idea what I wanted to know and hoped the author had some information that might help me. Usually I didn't find it or didn't know that I found it. Simply because I didn't take a moment to establish my purpose.

When you have a purpose for reading there can be many levels.

At the text level the first question you ask is, 'Why do I want/need to read this or said another way. "Reading this, What's in it for me?" The answer can usually be stated, 'I want to satisfy my curiousity about...,'To know about... so that I can...,' or 'I don't know yet but it's required of me for school/work' So at this point you have your basic level purpose. An overall purpose for deciding whether or not you even need or want to read the text.

When you're curious to know something going in and reading it looking for the answer is straight forward and easy you made up your mind that the text is going to tell you something about ... and you expect to find the answer.

At this point you would probably preview the book to establish what it is about... how does it relate to the subject or studies you're interested in. What does this book discuss that you and can you decide if it's relevant to your purpose.

Say for example a gardener... picks up a gardening book, the book's purpose is to build a water feature. Now for the sake of example this gardener has to build the water feature for the course s/he... s/he ultimately wants to be a specilist in this area. At this stage of the course s/he is learning about pumping water for moving water displays. Unfortunately our student gardener knows nothing about plumbing, power and filters. So their purpose for that book and at this stage of the course is to fill that knowledge gap. The purpose has now been defined as to what s/he wants to get out of the book so that s/he can pass the course and ultimately become a landscape gardener speicalising in water features. It is an assigned textbook and at this point in the course the focus in the areas I mentioned.

Most readers would just read the book and hope it sticks and that they remember most of it when it comes up in class. Well our student gardener is a photoread... s/hes going to focus in the parts of the book that right now satisfy the immediate purpose, which is to fill that knowledge gap. So S/he will zero in on the parts of the book that deals with those issues. Asking questions to build their understanding. Going from getting a broad idea of pumping water for moving water, then getting into the details what pumps, how much water is required, how deep, when, where, why and what else. This is as much as s/he needs to know for the course. Now being a photoreader s/he discovers that there is a reading list and in it they notice a book wholely focused on this subject... so the go through that book too since it will ultimately be their specialty they don't mind knowing more than what is required for the class. In this case s/he is looking for specific for certain types of displays, again the when, where hows and whys.

The point of purpose is that it adds fuel to your reading/learning. Another way to say it is, 'After reading this, what benefit is it going to have in your life? What will you know, and how can you apply it?'

On a simplified level you know your purpose when you can answer someone (and in the case of books, answer the author),'What do you want to know? What do you need to know? So that you can...? With the focus of your global purpose (what you want to do in life) intermediate purpose (in your case pass this course so that I can meet my gobal purpose) and immediate purpose/s understand what I need to to build the foundation that supports my intermediate and global purpose.

So it always comes back to... "Why are you reading this. What are you looking for? How important is this to you. When do you need to know this by. How will you know you found the answer? Is this the right book? Is this the only book?

As for incubation time activating after Photoreading the forum post. They come into the category of short articles. No reall incubation time required.

Alex

AlexK,
In one of your many posts, you stated that you've drawn up your own activation ?'s...(I believe you stated 4 pages worth) could you forward those ?'s to me via email or post them on the forum please? that would be grand!

?

[This message has been edited by AlexK (edited September 26, 2003).]

I think ingenuiti is talking about your article.

Alex, do you straight photoread forum posts or preview them as well?

How far are you from the monitor? :-)

Also - if during each activation i do i do the 3,2,1 technique and during it i creat a purpose of my reading. Just before I begin activating after 3,2,1 I formulate few questions about my reading. And finaly i formulate additional smaller and depper question during the activation itself.

What do you think?

[This message has been edited by Ivan (edited September 26, 2003).]

Staight photoread. I know if there is anything I want to superread and dip or answer intuitively. I can be responding to a question and get the feeling more is required so I superread that section of the post. Some are quite detail so I do more superreading or even rapid reading... however I do not read each word. I read for meaning and look for phrases.

During activation use the tangerine technique. The 3,2 1 technique is irrelevant for activation (nice to use at the beginning of a study session to set your mind on your purpose from your current study session.

When it comes to activation, the tangerine is the ideal mental focus for reading.

Yes, you can keep forming questions going as deep as you want. Till you have the level of information you desire.

You can be looking for a broad overview and that's enough or you can look for the microscopic details. Remember the more details you look for the more time you need to put in. So consider what do you really need to know? Only you can know when the book has gelled for you.

Alex

AlexK,

this was what i was referring to. sorry for the "?"...text version would suffice.
http://www.learningstrategies.com/forum/ubb/Forum8/HTML/002034.html

As stated in that post ... email me if you want a copy. That way I can attach it in a reply.

Alex

I still am having no luck with photoreading and it is getting really frustraiting. I do all the steps that I am told but I still get nothing out of the text. I still can't do mind maps on stuff I photoread either. At the end I don't know any more than I did prior which isn't very much. It just doesn't seem to work for me. I do notice changes when I photoread like my vocabulary has increased or atleast I am using more of a variaty of words I haven't noticed a change in my reading speed but my writing skills have improved. I just don't get what I am doing wrong. please help
white hair

Whitehair, what are you really looking for or expecting from the system. You say that you are doing all the steps but cannot mind map.

What method of notemaking have you used in the past? Did it work? If it did why not use it now?

On the activation issue you only tell us that you are doing all the steps withoout mentioning how you are doing them. Perhaps if you explained how long your activation time is. How you form mind probing questions. Whether you have establish if you like superreading and dipping better or skittering. What material you are working on. If it is study related material... Have you tried the system on something that you are personally interested in that is not study related.

As I said in another post. If you're learning photoreading and studying something new at the same time you leave yourself with a problem.

You're learning 2 things at once. So how can you tell whether photoreading is giving you the problem or the subject you are studying. Or how can you tell the subject you are studying is giving you problems and not photoreading? If you are not knowledgeable about either how can you see where the problem might lie?

Learn photoreading seperately from your studies first. In doing so you might have to approach your studies learning the way you usually do it. But by photoreading and activating 2 or 3 books that interest you, you'll be able to transfer the skill to studying.

The fact of the matter may be you are doing everything just right but you need more activation layers and time, as well as to go easy on yourself. Without that information we cannot make suggestions as to what you might need to adjust to activate successfully for you.

Since you are seeing benefits go easy on yourself. your breakthrough can come with the next activation pass.

If you would like to consider other ways of making notes besides mind mapping email me I for a copy of and article I have written on the subject.

Alex