PhotoReading
Frequently Asked Questions

Eyesight - Poor, Wearing Glasses, One Eye, Lazy Eye

Because the PhotoReading process relies on the peripheral vision, and not the hard focus of foveal vision, many people with severely diminished eyesight have enjoyed success PhotoReading. With this in mind, some PhotoReaders have found it is not necessary to wear glasses while PhotoReading, although glasses may be necessary for the other steps of the PhotoReading whole mind system.

People with sight in only one eye or with lazy eye may still enjoy success even though they cannot see the "blip page" as described in the PhotoFocus process. An alternative way to PhotoFocus is described in the PhotoReading course and book.

Other Reading Programs

Regular Reading Improvement Courses - These courses generally cover the basic techniques of efficient reading such as previewing, skimming, and clustering. These techniques, alone, cannot meet the needs of today's information-based society. Many of these courses are now integrating valuable whole mind techniques.

Speed Reading Courses - These courses come out of research from the 1940s. The two most popular are Evelyn Woods Reading Dynamics and Howard Berg's Mega Reading. Speed reading is primarily regular reading hastened up. Speed reading is generally associated with increased stress, and most people are never able to attain the speeds claimed. (While Howard Berg has had a long-playing infomercial on television during the 1990s, his course does not teach what he demonstrated on camera; nonetheless, it is an adequate course for speed reading.)

PhotoReading Look-a-Likes - There are many courses that teach a variation of PhotoReading, some illegally using the PhotoReading name. And, most are taught by PhotoReaders, even claiming to be official instructors. Some of these instructors could not meet the entrance criteria to the official PhotoReading Instructor Training Course while others did not demonstrate the necessary competencies to be certified as an instructor. People have reported that many of these courses offer benefits greater than the typical speed reading program, but they do not compare to the benefits of PhotoReading.

Another popular course, Ed Strachar's Reading Genius, doesn't fit into any of the above categories. His strategy involves overwhelming the brain at high speeds to show an improvement at slower speeds. While this is interesting, he requires students to listen to high energy music every time they read, which is not practical in most situations where reading is performed. Additionally, his teaching style may not be conducive to whole mind, accelerative learning, which the brain prefers.