Articles on PhotoReading

• Embraced Globally, Ignored Locally
• A Fast Read
• Mind Over Miles of Matter
• A Quick Read
• Beyond Speed Reading
• Readers Digest
• Should You Make PhotoReading a Priority?
• The History of PhotoReading
• Research Findings on Nonconscious Acquisition of Information
• PhotoReading and New Pathways to the Inner Mind

Readers Digest

appearing in Twin Cities Business Monthly

The stack of summertime reading material still languishes on your nightstand. Unread business books and trade magazines are piling up at the office. You now read the dailies on weekends.

Pete Bissonette, president of Learning Strategies Corporation, has a solution: PhotoReading. A "whole mind" information-processing technique, PhotoReading enables readers to scan pages at a rate of 25,000 words per minute while still retaining important information, says Bissonette, whose company published a book on the subject.

"PhotoReading isn't about moving your eyes faster," he adds. "It's about using your brain more efficiently." Paul Scheele, co-founder of Learning Strategies, wrote the book The PhotoReading Whole Mind System.

Tapping into techniques that he says have existed for hundreds of years, the neuro-linguistic programming and accelerated-learning expert began offering classes in 1986. Seventy instructors around the globe have schooled 15,000 people in PhotoReading techniques over the past decade, Bissonette claims.

PhotoReading seems to defy easy explanation. "In the purest sense of the word, you're reading material," Bissonette says, "but you're not reading in the way people typically think of reading because you're not getting any conscious recognition of the material at the time."

The information is "activated" later, allowing readers to recall portions of the material they've read. Sounds a bit spooky? Too New Age-ish? "That was my first reaction: Can you really believe this stuff?" says Pat Schuler, a marketing specialist with Computer Associates in Bloomington. In January, Schuler enrolled in a Learning Strategies course on PhotoReading. (The homestudy course runs $245: the live seminar is $750. The book costs $16.95) "I can't tell how or why it works, all I can tell you is that it does work," she says.

Schuler uses PhotoReading to keep up on ever-changing technology news and to digest complex information: "I'm not a technical person. So having a skill or tool that offered me any hope of improvement was worth the investment in time and money."

Ken Wilson, a marketing consultant and an adjunct faculty member at the University of St. Thomas, uses PhotoReading to check out course materials. "I can review a textbook in 10 minutes," he says. He makes use of half a dozen techniques to glean the information he needs from sources. Like any other tool, it can be adapted to fit one's needs, he says. Depending on their focuses, readers can recall themes, facts, and even figures from particular articles or reports. "I get four or five inches deep of magazines and newspapers in a week," Wilson says. "Now instead of taking a whole afternoon, I can go through them in a half an hour or less."

1. Are these benefits of value to you?

If you find yourself saying yes to most of the statements, then now is the time to take action.

2. Are the benefits worth the time and financial investment?

Only you can determine if all the benefits listed are worth it for you. Obviously thousands of people have discovered that PhotoReading is worth every nickel and every minute of time.

3. Budget your resources

You can cover your tuition or self-study program by credit card here on the website or by check through the mail. If you simply cannot afford it right now, we can work with you on a payment plan. Look into having your company pay for your tuition–the increase in productivity is often cause enough!

4. Plan your schedule

Figure out how you can free your schedule to take the next available PhotoReading class. Or, make time to use the self-study program. Don't forget, to delay means you may never get around to taking it—that's human nature. It also means you will miss out if you don't take it now.

5. Take action—here are four choices you can exercise now:

• Embraced Globally, Ignored Locally
• A Fast Read
• Mind Over Miles of Matter
• A Quick Read
• Beyond Speed Reading
• Readers Digest
• Should You Make PhotoReading a Priority?
• The History of PhotoReading
• Research Findings on Nonconscious Acquisition of Information
• PhotoReading and New Pathways to the Inner Mind