Introduction: Speed Reading Method – PhotoReading by Paul Scheele
Over a decade ago, I first read PhotoReading by Paul Scheele
. After reading the book, my first impression was that based on just the information in the book, it would be difficult for a learner to master the technique. I still feel that way today. I'm embarrassed to say that I bought the PhotoReading audio course in 2013 and hadn't invested the time to learn the process until now.
Myself, like so many people, buy programs that we don't use — even good programs. As a lifelong learner, I decided to embark on a structured learning journey. Like many of the most successful people, I choose to read books. I have over 12,000 books in my Kindle app. It's not as impressive as it sounds, I don't plan to read all those books. It's about the power of free – many of them I downloaded for free – and may not be worth the time investment to read.
Why an Accelerated Reading Method?
As the rate of information doubles, professionals must find a way to read and process information faster. Skills are constantly changing. To keep up, you need a system to up-skill and re-skill effectively and efficiently.
A few years ago, McKinsey Global Institute conducted a research study, The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies. It surveyed office workers in the US, Germany, France, and Great Britain to find out how much time they spent reading and answering emails and processing written information. They found that these workers, on average, spent 5.6 hours a day on these activities. As you will notice, the number of hours spent does not include reading for professional development.
More recently, the organization conducted another research study, The future of women at work: Transitions in the age of automation.
“Between 40 million and 160 million women globally may need to transition between occupations by 2030, often into higher-skilled roles. To weather this disruption, women (and men) need to be skilled, mobile, and tech-savvy, but women face pervasive barriers on each, and will need targeted support to move forward in the world of work.”
The two study builds the case for effective accelerated learning methods.
Have you read?
Best Speed Reading Method? BrainRead by Göran Askeljung
What is PhotoReading?
Coined by Paul Scheele, PhotoReading is “mentally photographing” the printed page at rates exceeding 25,000 words per minute. According to Scheele, “The PhotoReading process bypasses the conscious mind and sends the information to storage bins in the other-than-conscious.
This means that when you're PhotoReading, you will have little or no conscious knowledge of the materials. It's all there some place, but consciously you may not know it. You have to “activate” the text to the conscious mind, so that you can use the information however you use information.
PhotoReading by Paul Scheele, the Method
The PhotoReading System comprises five steps: preparing, previewing, PhotoReading, activating, and rapid reading. They are options that you can use depending on what your needs are. Since then, Paul Scheele has updated his reading program. The five steps are now – Preparing, Previewing, PhotoReading, Postviewing, and Activating.
Preparing
In the preparation stage, explicitly state your purpose for reading the material. When you have established your reason for reading a book, your unconscious mind will work with you to find the information that you want. The next step is to enter into a state of relaxed alertness.
Previewing
Survey your reading material quickly. Review the back cover, the table of contents, preface, foreword, and introduction.
PhotoReading
Ask yourself why you want to PhotoRead the material, relax your body, calm your mind and confidently flip through your reading material.
Postviewing
This step is like the Preview stage, but this time around, you'll look for trigger words, words that are repeated, in the sub-title, highlighted and so on. Decide if it's necessary to read further.
Activating
Allow time to elapse before you enter into the activation stage. Let the information incubate, then probe your mind by asking yourself questions about the material. Super read the parts that attract you.
Rapid Reading
Quickly move through your reading material from start to finish, at a speed comfortable to you. Zip quickly through the information that you've established to be unimportant and spend more time on more important information.
Scheele suggests that to manage your time effectively, you should sort all your reading material into levels of priority, handle paper only once, always have reading material with you. You never know when you'll have a few minutes, and preview everything that's important.
Rapid reading is now one of the ways to activate what you learn. It's no longer a stage in the photoreading process.
Six Great Ideas from PhotoReading by Paul Scheele
- When the best readers read, they do so in an active, purposeful, questioning and fully engaged manner.
- To effectively read, you must begin with a clear sense of purpose, why are you reading the material and what do you hope to accomplish?
- Set specific reading goals.
- After you've read important information, create a visual diagram of the key ideas.
Conclusion: Speed Reading Method – PhotoReading by Paul Scheele
The Photoreading book that I read has some very good information, but the concepts may be somewhat foreign to most people. I recommend that attend a live seminar or take online course on the topic. A PDF of the updated PhotoReading book is included with the course. You also get a PDF of Natural Brilliance.
I bought the PhotoReading course for several hundred dollars. Recently, I went through the program without doing the exercises as recommended. I then went through the course again doing the exercises.
I must admit that I told myself that I would suspend judgement and allow myself to give the program a chance. Scheele is introducing a very different concept from what I'm accustomed to. To capitalize on this accelerated reading technique I must use it every day while reading books. This will allow me to consistently read at least one book a day.
For nonfiction books, based on previewing the book, I would only read the important sections. Photoreading will take this technique to a higher level.
Natural Brilliance
The Einstein Factor by Win WengerMoonwalking with EinsteinImage-Streaming
UPDATE: First published June 2009
