dmlocke: I have heard it said before that sometimes superreading does not work well with technical material and that skittering works better.
Skittering is very useful for academic material or material that is instructional in nature. Skittering involves a wild, dancing about movement like that of a waterbug on the surface of a pond. This movement of the eyes gives the brain an opportunity to look at all the words of a paragraph that supports its main premise.
To do skittering read the first sentence(topic sentence) of the paragraph you are going to begin skittering on. Move your eyes in a rapid pattern over all the words in the paragraph, except those in the first & last sentence,noticing those words that seem to carry meaningful support to the premise in the first sentence. The movement of your eyes can follow a zigzag pattern from top to bottom or bottom to top.It can follow circular pattern clockwise or counterclockwise and move from the center out or from the edges to the center. There is no set pattern, but you will discover a preference for one of them. Play with them all to find what works best for you. This movement gives your brain a chance to spot ideas that augment or add to the main concept in a paragraph. If the meaning of the paragraph remains unclear, read the last sentence. Continue this process through each succeeding paragraph until you near the end of the reading selection.
Review and reflect. Make a mindmap in your own words. Sure you have an open book but do not copy the words word for word put it into your own words.
Photoreading a book everyday is fine. It is especially helpful with a complex book.
Skittering is on page 64 & 65 of the Photoreading book 3rd edition.Five day plan (highly recommended) is on page 76 & 77 of the Photoreading book 3rd edition. If you do not have a photoreading book do a search on skittering and five day plan.
When you are superreading or skittering you should not be working on your mindmap at that time. It would slow you down way too much. You work on the mindmap when you have completed superreading or skittering.
Are you pulling your trigger words and formulating questions for them? Are you writing these questions down?
Your activation session for the chapter should be 20 minutes for superread and dip or skittering (your choice) and 10 minutes for your mindmap.The total maximum time for the activation session should be 30 minutes. 5 minute breaks at the end of the activation session are crucial.
Skittering is much faster that speed reading or rapid reading. Rapid reading is the slowest. While superreading is faster than skittering skittering gives you more which would be ideal in a technical book.
With a technical book you may need to make numerous multiple passes but you will still come out ahead then if you did elementary reading reading word for word line by line.
Can you give me the title of the chapter you were activating, the purpose you set for the chapter and the trigger words for the chapter and the questions you wrote down for the chapter.
Photoread4me
