Do you have a pile of reading material that you don't seem to be able to get through? Maybe you have a stack of unread magazines in one corner of your home, a few books on your desk you really want to find time to read, and an inbox overflowing with unread e-mails. Well, there's some good news I'd like to share with you: you can get through all of that information a lot faster than you ever thought possible with the Photoreading Whole-Mind System.

PhotoReadingis available as a home-study course, and is considered by many to be the best reading improvement program available. It was developed by internationally acclaimed expert in neuro-linguistic programming and accelerated learning, Paul R. Scheele. This system will show you how to increase your reading speed, enhance your learning, and tap your mind’s vast resources.

The five steps of the PhotoReading system are the following:

• Step One: Preparing
• Step Two: Previewing
• Step Three: PhotoReading
• Step Four: Activating
• Step Five: Rapid Reading

Continue reading this HubPage to discover how you can conquer information overload with PhotoReading.

Photoreading is not about moving your eyes faster through the page. It's about tapping into the full power of your mind.  The first step in the PhotoReading process is to prepare.

Before you begin to read you should have a clear sense of purpose; that is, you should know why you’re reading the document in front of you, and what you want to have accomplished by the time you’re done reading. When you make reading a goal-oriented activity you're guiding your mind to actively seek the specific information you’re looking for.

Once you've established a purpose for reading the material, you enter a state of of relaxed alertness—similar to meditation–which is the accelerative learning state. By relaxing you're allowing yourself to gain access to preconscious processing while you're reading .

Although there are different ways to reach this state of relaxed alertness, the PhotoReading system teaches the tangerine technique.Basically, you imagine that there’s a tangerine resting on the top, back part of your head . Keep one unit of attention fixed on that point as you read. You’ll notice that when you do this your field of vision enlarges and that you feel more relaxed, centered, and attentive. I

photo credit: Lori Greig

In order to enhance your reading comprehension you need to start with the big picture--sort of an aerial view of the reading material--before you proceed to the smaller, more detailed parts. First, you survey the material to get a broad sense of its underlying structure.

When you're surveying a book you basically pick up the material and do all of the following:

• Look at the table of contents to get a general idea of how the book is structured.
• Read the summary of the book on the back cover.
• Glance through the book and look at titles and subtitles, as well as any text which might be in bold or italics.
• Look for any text boxes in which the author might have included some vital information he or she wanted to make sure that their readers would not miss, and so on.
  

While you're surveying, start putting together a list of key terms which embody the core concepts found in the material. These are highly visible, repeatedly used terms that present central ideas and help you to identify the key message of the material.

Paul Scheele compares previewing to walking into a supermarket looking for an apple and stopping first to identify where the fruit section is located, instead of simply wandering through the aisles of the entire store until you happen to come across the apples.

After previewing you might decide that you just need a general overview of the material; then, if at some future date you need more specific information on the subject matter, you’ll know where to find it. Maybe there's just one chapter of the book that interests you. You might even conclude that you're not going to read the document after all because it simply does not meet your needs and interests.

Now you're going to expose the reading material to your subconscious mind and take a quick mental snapshot of each page. Soften your eyes so that your peripheral vision expands and the whole printed page comes into view. Now look at your reading material with this soft gaze and quickly turn the pages.

Be aware that after the PhotoReading step you'll probably have very little conscious awareness of what you just read, even though the material is now stored in your subconscious mind. In the next step you'll gain conscious awareness of what you're reading.

If you can take some time away from the reading material after you're done with the PhotoReading step--preferably for an entire day for longer documents--then great. This will allow for the incubation of what you've just read. If all you can do is take a break for a few minutes, then don't worry, that's fine.

At the activation step you explore the parts of the text to which you feel most attracted and you super read those parts by scanning quickly down the center of each page or column. When you feel it’s appropriate, dip into the text for more focused reading to comprehend the details.

One of the best ways to activate the material is by creating a mind map.  A mind map is a diagram containing a visual representation of facts or ideas. Watch the YouTube video with Stephen Pierce below and pay close attention as Stephen shows you how to mind map your reading material as part of the PhotoReading process. Then visit my Squidoo lens--the link is provided below--for even more information on mind mapping.

photo credit: gagilas

The Rapid Read step is the closest to conventional reading. While rapid reading you move your eyes quickly through the text taking as much time as you need and feeling free to adjust your reading speed depending on the complexity, prior knowledge, and importance of the material.

Remember that reading is not about looking at every word in a document, it's about extracting valuable information from the reading material.

This step takes place after you’ve already become familiar with the text through the previous four steps. Therefore, you’ll find yourself going through and comprehending the material at a much faster rate than you would through the use of the conventional reading strategy you learned in school.

Conclusion

PhotoReading can benefit anyone, from students who need to prepare for tests, to business people who have to go through large numbers of emails, reports and memos. It’s time to leave elementary school reading behind and learn how to read more effectively and efficiently by using your whole mind.