Nov 10
Is it a good Idea to go straight to rapid reading experiencing difficulty with manual Activation?
Rapid Reading
Rapid reading is the closest thing to traditional reading. Unlike speed reading where one speed fits all you move through the pages from beginning to end and different speeds. For areas that you have covered by manual activation you’ll [...] [...more]
Posted: under Activation, Goals, PhotoRead, Photoreading, learning, reading.
Is it a good Idea to go straight to rapid reading experiencing difficulty with manual Activation?
Rapid Reading
Rapid reading is the closest thing to traditional reading. Unlike speed reading where one speed fits all you move through the pages from beginning to end and different speeds. For areas that you have covered by manual activation you’ll probably use speeds close to Superread and dip. For areas that are new or you haven’t covered yet you might find yourself slowing down to the average reading speed of 190 words a minute. Then picking up speed again.
Rapid Reading a short cut when having trouble with activation?
No. If you are having problems with manual activation there are a couple of other reasons you need to consider.
The danger of going straight to rapid Reading as an activation method is that Rapid Reading it closest to traditional reading. The risk for a beginner is they will just continue to use the passive reading method. With rapid reading it is too easy to become or remain a passive reader.
If You have trouble with manual activation have a look at your purpose. Ask yourself how do you plan to use this information in the long run. Once you answered that, consider what you need to know to reach that goal. Your purpose then becomes the reason you are reading the book and it helps you to stay focused on the information you need from this particular text.
Purpose is a large topic of it’s own I’ll probably write an article about that in the future.
For now know that if you haven’t established a purpose it won’t do to go straight into rapid reading
Exceptions, When it is acceptable to go into rapid reading in the early stages of activation.
There will be times when you find a book so interesting after an initial activation that it makes perfect sense to start rapid reading. It’s a perfect approach for reading for pleasure.
On the whole I recommend that beginners do manual activation first on non-fiction text. Reserve Rapid reading for novels while you work towards proficiency with the PhotoReading system.
How many manual activation passes before rapid reading?
I strongly recommend that for a book of 200 pages the beginner allow at least six 20-minute activation passes. That means you’re spending 2 hours in activation. This isn’t much time for a book that takes many readers 8 to 12 hours.
Only after doing the six activation passes allow yourself to go into rapid reading. Often rapid reading is unnecessary after multiple activation passes. However for a beginner it is good experience to help them see what they missed if anything.
If the beginner finds they missed important information it pays to spend a few minutes looking at the questions and what your original purpose was. And mentally note that this is the information you seek when activating. It provides training.
For longer books you would apply more activation passes. To work out how many passes you would apply consider how many hours the book would take using your traditional reading approach and divide that figure by three. That’s how many hours your activation passes would total. Divide by three again if you are planning 20-minute activation layers. This will give you the total number of activation passes that would be ideal before you resort to Rapid Reading.
Textbooks, treat each chapter as a book on it’s own. Textbooks are often needed for courses, so you might need to apply at least 3 activation passes to the chapter. Each pass might just be 7 to 10 minutes. Follow that with a rapid read if necessary.
Believe me that is a lot better than the approach recommended in a speed reading article I found yesterday. It said after learning to speed read don’t read three books in the time you’ve read one. Read the same book three times. If you know maths you’ll notice you haven’t gained anything by speed reading if you still need to read the text three times. However most universities do recommend going over the text 3 times. Do it three times with manual activation and once with a rapid read if necessary. You’ll be satisfying the university recommendation and still get your reading done in 1/3rd the time.
The Benefit of Manual Activation
Developing the skill of manual activation helps you to become an active reader. It will make it possible for you to finish a book in 20 to 30 minutes rather than 2 or 3 hours.
To get to that point you do need to invest more time in manual activation in the early stages of learning. It means making more activation passes until the information starts making sense.
Looking at it realistically when you start reading a book at chapter one and the book consists of 18 chapters you ain’t got nothing yet. When you spend 10-minutes on first chapter you accept the knowledge isn’t there until you’ve reached the end of the book. So why short-change yourself when you use activation?
When activating set realistic goals and stick with it. Form mind probing questions. Begin activating when you have one question in mind. If you don’t know where to start look at the table of content and turn the chapter heading into questions. Do any of those questions sound like questions you need answers to, to reach your purpose?
Once you find an answer, form another question. Something in the text might have sparked your curiosity. Much like having a conversation or interview with someone (the Author is a person) learning something new sparked another question or raised a point that needs clarification. There you have found another question something you want more information on.
Build it in layers. Manual activation works best when you keep it short. 5 to 20-minute passes.
This is where rapid reading will set you back. Once you begin rapid reading often you will go longer than 20 minutes. The disadvantage of that is the longer you read the slower you get. Even with rapid reading breaks are important.
It Gets easier
Activation has the benefit of increasing the speed at which you rapid read. If you applied three activation passes to a chapter of a text or 6 activation passes with a book. Answering mind probing questions. You have already have an understanding most of the information in the book. Then speed at which you can rapid read the text is greater than when you give up on activation too soon or used rapid reading as a first phase of activation. With the sections you haven’t activated chances are you already Superread it at least once if not more.
I know activation can seem daunting. I have been there myself. Where it felt like I was getting nothing from the book for the first three 20-minute passes only to see it start to come together on the fourth. The interesting thing is when it starts to come together you’re almost done. One or two passes more passes and you’re done. So don’t fret if it doesn’t make sense in the first two or three. Persist with mind probing questions and it has to come together.
If you have a nagging doubt that you want to know more but are not sure what it is you want to know after you’ve done a reasonable number of activation passes. Then use rapid reading.
Remember your purpose. Is the time you’re planning to invest in Rapid Reading worth it? Consider the 80/20 rule.
© Alex Viefhaus originally published December 2005
Sep 30
In my previous post I introduced some insight into the abilities we have and the flawed thinking that PhotoReading is something mystical that only a special few can learn.
In this post I want to show the stumbling blocks of our thinking and beliefs that can prevent us from learning the PhotoReading system.
There are a couple [...] [...more]
Posted: under Activation, Change, Persistence, Photoreading, frustration.
Tags: belief, comprehension, learning, Photoreading
In my previous post I introduced some insight into the abilities we have and the flawed thinking that PhotoReading is something mystical that only a special few can learn.
In this post I want to show the stumbling blocks of our thinking and beliefs that can prevent us from learning the PhotoReading system.
There are a couple of other stumbling main blocks that affect the belief of the learner. One is the stories and videos of expert PhotoReaders. The ones who flip the pages of the book or scroll the computer screen and then answer questions about the text. First it must be understood that they are experienced in PhotoReading. They would have been unsuccessful in the early days of learning to PhotoRead as any beginner now learning PhotoReading. They had build the non-conscious to conscious mind connection and trust by applying the full system and applying it often. Something the beginner has trouble believing they are capable of.
This creates a paradox. If you don’t believe you can do it and then test the system, you’re going to score as you believe. The way to do what the expert does, is use the system enough to own the system. This means shifting out of limiting reading and passive reading habits that you learned in elementary or primary school.
This brings us to the second stumbling block. The passive reading habit. The PhotoReading system is an active reading system. By active I mean you need to know what you want from what you are reading and be able to recognise when you’ve consciously grasped that. The techniques are straight forward and the activation step when applied quickly help the beginner to get through their reading material 3 to 5 times faster in a live seminar. However the deceptive simplicity of the activation step leave the beginner to believe they don’t need to work on this part of the system. They believe they aren’t getting the PhotoReading step right when they don’t see instant results at the beginning of activation.
Here again we run into a problem of habit. It’s habit that keep us in the passive reading approach. By applying the PhotoReading system a beginner can get their reading done three to 5 times faster. However because they measure themselves against the PhotoReading experts they hold the belief they cannot do it well enough. Their belief that it’s difficult keeps them stuck working with one book for 12 to 18 hours because they think the experts get through all their books in 3 to 20 minutes. They see 4 to 6 hours as a failure to apply the system. Their belief that they are failing because they don’t match the expert time becomes a barrier to learning. 
What you see and the success stories are exciting experiences however even experts spend more time with the books they really want to know. In fact the more books they have used the full system on the better their conscious - nonconscious mind connection that such demonstrations become possible.
I offer my own experience here to help the beginner.
I consider myself an expert PhotoReader and a book of about 350 pages that I really want to understand and expect to learn something important from would take me 30 to 120 minutes. It depends on my reading purpose. By the same token there are many books I only spend 5 to 15 minutes with to discover they have nothing of interest to me. These books I have put on my mental bookshelf. I can always come back to them if my circumstances change and it does become important.
If you can believe that you can read you have the necessary skills to become proficient at PhotoReading . You won’t be demonstrating the PhotoReading skills you might find on the web overnight. The only person you should be measuring your progress against is your own. If it takes you 18 hours to read a book and in the process of learning a system you could reduce that to 9 hours with the same or even better comprehension isn’t that progress?
Focus on believing it is possible for you to learn PhotoReading. Don’t compare yourself with others and give up. Aspire to progress to that level.
© Alex K Viefhaus Sept. 2009
Jun 08
Been busy the last couple of weeks developing an activation technique which I believe will help those who have trouble with comprehension. I’ve been working on this because so many students who participate in my class complain most of all of not being able to comprehend what they are reading. They struggle with this with [...] [...more]
Posted: under Persistence, PhotoRead, Photoreading, comprehension, reading.
Tags: Photoreading, reading comprehension, speed reading
Been busy the last couple of weeks developing an activation technique which I believe will help those who have trouble with comprehension. I’ve been working on this because so many students who participate in my class complain most of all of not being able to comprehend what they are reading. They struggle with this with traditional reading and hope that PhotoReading will help them.
It seems to me that many who look for ways to read faster with techniques like PhotoReading are hoping speed will help them comprehend what they are reading faster. Comprehension isn’t about reading it’s a way of thinking.
PhotoReading can and does help with comprehension however we still have the initial hurdle of activating enough. Too many give up before they are done. Those who have difficulty with comprehension stop the activation process way too soon. Usually on the first activation.
Since comprehension is a way of thinking, I’ve been working on a way to teach that way of thinking. I’ll hope to present it at my next PhotoReading class. I’ve been devising an activation process that I believe will help leverage comprehension. For now I simply refer to it as KL Activation. I am hoping that it will be the switch that gets them activating.
© Alex K Viefhaus June 2009
May 13
People have often asked me how do I know I’m in photofocus? `In the seminar I teach how to see the blip page. That is one of the ways to know you are in photofocus. However most people find it challenging and try too hard to get the blip page. They won’t trust the rest [...] [...more]
Posted: under Blip page, Mind Stuff, PhotoRead, Photoreading, confusion, photofocus, success.
Tags: Blip page, Photoreading
People have often asked me how do I know I’m in photofocus? `In the seminar I teach how to see the blip page. That is one of the ways to know you are in photofocus. However most people find it challenging and try too hard to get the blip page. They won’t trust the rest of the system until they get this right.
Hey you don’t need to see blip page. The imaginary X-technique works just as well and if you have vision in only one eye you won’t ever see the blip page. That doesn’t stop you from being a successful PhotoReader.
So how do I know when I’m in photofocus? As I’ve taught in my classes and explained on the forum to me it feels exactly like I’m day dreaming. I’m looking without looking through whatever is in front of me into space. Looking beyond. PhotoReading to me has always felt the same as daydreaming.
Of course daydreaming has always been associated with switching off. So I think many of my students were reluctant to try this. How can the mind take anything in while one is daydreaming. How do I know it’s being processed? How when daydreaming is switching off, lazy, non-functioning aspect of brain activity?
Well exciting news! What we’ve been taught as a truth has been proven wrong with fMRI. Daydreaming is active activity. It switches on the brains problem solving functions.
“Prof. Kalina Christoff, UBC Dept. of Psychology. "But this study shows our brains are very active when we daydream – much more active than when we focus on routine tasks."
…The study finds that the brain’s "executive network" – associated with high-level, complex problem-solving and including the lateral PFC and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex – also becomes activated when we daydream.
This is a surprising finding, that these two brain networks are activated in parallel," says Christoff. "Until now, scientists have thought they operated on an either-or basis – when one was activated, the other was thought to be dormant." The less subjects were aware that their mind was wandering, the more both networks were activated.
This for me is the most exciting evidence that we do gain something from the PhotoReading step. A step that to me always felt like I was switching on daydreaming. Now I know I’m switching on the brains problem solving network.
So if you want to get into photofocus, daydream. Because big stuff is happening while you daydream.
Source: University of British Columbia (2009, May 12). Brain’s Problem-solving Function At Work When We Daydream. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 13, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2009/05/090511180702.htm
© AlexK Viefhaus
Dec 12
What I've been up to lately, why I haven't been posting. [...more]
Posted: under Change, Personal development, Photoreading, Uncategorized.
Tags: Photoreading
Updating my blog. Imported some of the old post. May or may not import more. Mostly I hope that this blog will cover some of my musing and perhaps some life coaching tips and PhotoReading tips.
Some reason for my lengthly silence. I’m working on a book (with my mind writing a second one). I’m also planning a class on improving the way people use the internet for research. This I expect will be a 3 hour course and will help anyone get more out of their search results and time on the internet. I think if PhotoReaders aren’t using these techniques they aren’t taking advantage of PhotoReading skill which has to be a major improvement on the 25% loss of natural reading speed on the computer screen.
The easiest way to keep up with my post is to add my blog to your RSS feed.
