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Originally posted by CameronJ:
In case you don't know me, I am a 10th grade high school student in Florida.

I have taught myself to PhotoRead from the book, but am still learning some of the intricacies, and especially how I can best integrate them into my life. Being a student, I naturally wanted to PhotoRead at least partially for absorbing material in a deeper, easier, quicker way for school.

Beginning to integrate PhotoReading into my homework reading routine has brought up a few questions I have, however.

1) Like most schools, we never get an assignment to simply have read an entire book by a certain date. Every night in English or AP American we get an assignment such as read the next three chapters, or read the next ten pages in your text book. This sort of contradicts some of the PhotoReading philosophy, it seems to me, and makes me unsure of whether to try to activate the whole book (or textbook chapter) or where to simply PhotoRead and then Rapid Read the pages assigned. Believe it or not, however, I tend to feel more comfortable with Superreading/dipping instead of Rapid Reading because it's different enough from regular reading that I can keep the flow and not worry about having consciously missed sequential meaning. SR/Dipping with focused questions seems to help me get information faster, and then I don't feel as much need to subvocalize as often, either.

Actually that's where photoreading shines out. Photoread your textbook the whole book. When it comes to dealing with the assigned chapter you have 2 options photoread the whole book again or just the required chapters plus one or 2 either side. Instead of now reading the books you activate those chapters. All the teachers instructions are... These chapters need to be activated, tonight. You're ahead in the game. Where everyone else has to slow read it you pull it together by mind mapping the chapters in much less time. So SR&Dip to your hearts content.

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2.) In English class, we aren't just reading for plot, but also for thematic significance, metaphors, imagery, implications, and connotations. In other words, DETAILS. With normal activation it seems to me that until you've gotten a really strong subconscious <-> link, you will get the plot, but likely miss many important nuances and details along the way. Should I postview, superread/dip, and THEN Rapid-Read? Or might there be some cases when I'd want to read with subvocalization? I tend to want to sound things out because of that old comforting habit which as of right now still aids my conscious comprehension in reading compared to speed/rapid-reading unless I am REALLY relaxed and having a GREAT day with the stars aligned in the proper way...

That's why it's good to prepare a mind map. Branch each of the ideas that you're looking for in the novel to the mind map.

If you need to know characters, branch for characters, plot, theme, mood, underlying messages etc each is a brach before you start activating. When you start mind probing and asking questions you find answers to hook up to the branches. If you haven't discovered the theme yet (chances are you have but haven't formed the question yet) you know because nothing has been added on your mind map for that branch.

Mind maps are excellent for note making they can also be a good tool for finding direction and making sure you covered all the territories.

Be flexible. You've already answered your own questions. Your inner mind usually gives you guiding signals. I find it impressive that people have these insights from their inner mind and ask "should I do that?" of us on the forum. You came up with the idea for a reason. Test it out by all means. Keep posting asking those question though. Others might learn from the idea. So share your experience.

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If I think of any more specific questions, I'll post them :-) I hope you can help me truly get superior comprehension from my reading in 1/3 the time. As of yet, it's only worked for AP American, but for that it's worked WELL I am hopeful that there are a whole lot of great solutions for me that I need only become aware of and apply in order to get to where I want to be.

-Cameron

It's a lot easier than you think.

Alex