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.
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...
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