Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ PhotoReading, Memory Optimizer PRing Heavily and Importantly Illustrated Material

Hello, I'm brazilian and I'm absolutely new to Photoreading (I've read the explanatory textbook yesterday), so new that I actually didn't experienced any form of Activation, even manually (although I didn't tried that one very much, neither harder enough). But I put a lot of faith in the method, and I've already photoread 4 books (not trying to activate manually, except for the first of them).

Because I've been in vacation the last days, my photoreading was being directed not to academic matters, but to books related to my hobbies (that eliminates anxiety and urge to results, which I think is good). Actually, to one hobby in particular, and that is drawing.

The problem, however, is that the books I'm photoreading are fully illustrated, and very often these illustrations are explicative, and would require a more keen analysis, and sometimes these explanatory illustrations are present in nearly the whole book, and make a detailed approach to them would take so much time that it would throw away the concept of "saving time when studying" expected from photoreading. How should I proceed?

Also, for a matter of curiosity, I wanted to know if I could apply some concepts of photoreading in single or several images, or even movies, to "absorb" the visual concepts ( the aesthetical, stylistic ones to be precise), within them, rather unconsciously I would say. It's a strange use of Photoreading, but who are the photoreaders to speak of limits =)?

Ah, there's another problem... I can read consistently well in english and spanish, but my native language is portuguese, and I can sense not only a slower pace and slightly harder comprehension when reading in those languages, but also a lack of naturality, of acquaintance... That could interfere in the unconscious processes of photoreading?

I called it "another problem" because it is related to my previous question... That is, most of the material I mean to read is in a foreign language, in my case english.

P.S.: Don't forgive my writing mistakes on my posts, I'm a fierce learner, and by correcting me you aren't by any means offending me, but making me learn a little more, and that makes me grateful.

I'm sorry for anything, if I overtalked or something...

Putting my questions as simply as I can:

1 - Does Photoreading a drawing book "absorb" the ideas of images when their purpose is to elucidate concepts contained in the text? Like anatomy charts, perspective and proportion schemes... I mean, I could actually 'dip' into those kind of images when trying to activate manually to understand them better, but there's such a huge amount of them in the books I want to photoread...

2 - Using photofocus, maybe even with some preview and postview, in artworks could actually give me some of the artist's style when I do my own drawings? The way they draw the human face, the way they render some clothing texture, or even the kind of monsters they invent.

3 - Does photoreading in foreign languages, when I don't have a perfect fluency on them (which I doubt to be possible to acquire since they are not my native languages), interfere in photoreading? My conscious thoughts are mostly in my own language, portuguese, so is my brain really capable of processing informations in other languages unconsciously, as it is supposed to do when photoreading and incubating and all of that?

The firt and third questions are crucial to me, because I've photoread (or at least tried) almost ten books by now, from which only two are in portuguese, and I haven't had any special success when activating manually (I've just solidly assimilated things that I've previewed, postviewed and speedread/dip - no unconscious process seemed to be envolved), and I didn't yet tried to activate the books in portuguese (I've photoread them today, and I'm letting them incubate for tomorrow). Besides, every single non-portuguese book (most of them in english) I've photoread was "heavily and importantly illustrated" drawing instruction material. So, I suspect that these two factors (being in english and being instructionally illustrated) together may be somehow blocking the benefits of photoreadng for me.

Damn, I think I've overtalked it again =P

Victor, as you're new to PhotoReading I suggest using other books. Ones along the self help line. Choose some that are a similar number of pages as the PhotoReading book. Many hobby books are like textbooks and reference books. Not really suited to learning the system.

It will be great on them once you have learned. However for learning use reading material that teaches with text.

AlexK

Ok, thanks =)

I must admit I've been trying hard stuff for a begginer. Not only these books are about drawing and in english, they are in digital format, and in most of them the best way to "try" to photoread was scrolling down (because setting them to a size in which they fit the screen size, the texts, especially explicative texts near some illustrations, became very small, sometimes impossible to read), and I have a feeling that photoreading by scrolling down is not the ideal...

Actually... Could you tell me if there's any problem, or disadvantage, in photoreading in the PC by scrolling down, for begginers? And in photoreading material with nearly unreadable small text?

Even though I'm definitely going to try some easier stuff for now... =)

Don't scroll in digital format.

And no it's not really the best way to learn. Get your skill on physical books you build the body mind connection faster. Once you have the skill of processing the information faster you have an advantage in digital text however digital text is 25% slower with natural reading. That's like starting a race sitting in the spectators stand.

AlexK

Could you tell me where can I find list of recommended practice books for beginners?

Maybe this is a silly question, but I would like to ask, how much should I practice with easy books before pick up text books for PhotoRead?

Thank you!

The best "practice" books are the ones you have an interest in, because then you'll know whether you truly got what you wanted out of it or not, and if not, to do some more layers of activation.

Consider it playing, and look forward to it, don't consider it practice, which is laborious and dreadful.


Once you feel comfortable using the system, begin using it on textbooks.

I recommend at least 5 books. That's the minimum we work through in a class. And even then I encourage my students to keep doing at least one more book a week for another month. They can include their textbooks but I found if they do other books and hone their Superreading and dipping and skittering they build the body mind connection faster.

AlexK