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I read the first paragraph and start looking for key words on about every page, writing them down.
This is overkill only look for trigger words every 10 pages or so. Look at the whole page during preview and grab the words that jump up at you. Save rhymthic persal for activation, (after photoreading and post viewing). So for previewing and postviewing (where you look for trigger words) grab a few pages and look, turn a few more. So that in about 8 minutes you get about 25 trigger words from a whole book. The idea is to avoid getting caught up in reading.
For the blip page, grab a book, open it up, lift a page now curve it without creasing so that the outer edge is in the center crease. This page now makes a sort of bulge between the two pages giving you a third page. That is what a blip page looks like. When you go into photofocus you will see a ghostlike effect that is similar to that. The words will be out of focus and that's fine.
Looking with photofocus is a parallel view, you can practice with stereo 3D images and there are some additonal ways of gaining photofocus. I found that taking a book outside and picking a spot well into the distance to focus on helped. Pick a spot to focus on and without changing your gaze notice the blip as you move the book up before your eyes at about 40cm (18 inches) distance. The surprise might cause you to change focus but practice with stereograms.
http://www.vision3d.com/3views.html
That site has some additional ways of seeing with parallel vision (bottom of the page). In the mean time keep using the imaginary X technique.
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I feel like I need a timer to beep every 15 or so seconds because I stay on the page much longer than that sometimes because there is so much info that I think I am missing it all.
Set a timer for 20 or 30 minutes (30 minutes if you aim to get through the whole book). You aim to build comprehension in multiple passes rather than in one go. So if you form clear questions superread and dip for the answers the rest is irrelevant. When you ask additional questions you can find yourself superreading that page or even a series of pages again. And that's how you build the comprehension. Remember you first books become fully activated in about 1/3 the time it took you to regular read them so. If the book would have taken you 12 hours with regular reading it would take you 3 perhaps 4 hours with photoreading. In other words that's 6 to 8 30 minute activation layers, and thats probably 4 times per page exposure to the information on the page. With experience you will know when you have all the information you want.
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After that I feel like I need to read the book normally so that I will know something because I probably have class tomorrow and I have to know what is going on in class so I must understand the material
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That simply means the book hasn't gelled for you and you need to do some more activation layers. Another 30 minutes might be all that is required. The only time I would be concerned with having conscious comprehension of a certain chapter or book is when the instructor advised you to have it read prior to class, and even then they have to allow for members of the class not having read it, so class becomes further activation of the text.
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Now not only do I have a lot of material to read, but I want to read the newspapers and other journals every day, if I understood this process and was able to do it immediately and effectively I would have achieved my goal.
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The number one rule you learn as an effective reader is... prioritise. When it comes down to it not everything has to be read fully. Some of that material you will only photoread and perhaps for short 10 page articles postview for 3 minutes and decide it isn't worth your time to go further. Others you will instinctively dump because you already know the information provided and there is nothing more for you to gain from it. So preview all your reading material and trust your judgement when you ask yourself the question "Is this worth my time, now or even later?"
Alex
