Rating: 
Summary: A waste of time and money
Review: I suspect that many people are tantalized by the possibility of reading effortlessly, at great speed, with superb comprehension. I was; that's why I bought this book.
But this book's author offers merely the standard steps for effective reading -- previewing, skimming, deciding in advance what you want to get out of the reading, etcetera -- along with a time-wasting exercise (the "photoreading" step) that involves flipping quickly through a book's pages while allowing the eyes, which remain motionless, to perceive the pages as they are flipped. Of course this "photoreading" step, as the author admits, yields no conscious understanding of the pages' contents; for this you'll need the standard steps of previewing, skimming, etcetera to "activate" what you've supposedly absorbed at an unconscious level during the "photoreading" step. Baloney.
The author of this book deserves credit only for his diabolical marketing genius; rarely is a book of such useless hocus-pocus so successfully marketed to the public.
Rating:
Summary: Don't buy into this scam, here's why:
Review: I'm glad I didn't buy this book/system, here's why:While looking for information on how I can improve my reading skills I stumbled across LSC's PhotoReading website and was truly amazed with their promises. Being able to read at least three times faster and that's just the beginning? Eventually being able to read 25,000 words per minute? WOW! In my naive mindet I got all excited and started thinking about all the books I wanted to read. The website included testimonials and claimed that "PhotoReading has appeared nationally on hundreds of radio shows, including network broadcasts, and many television shows." The whole course costs approximately $250, now that's a lot of money! I decided to do some research first and see what other people had to say, interestingly the only credible study I could find was conducted by NASA, here's what their report said: The results for all measures yielded no benefits of using the PhotoReading technique. The extremely rapid reading rates claimed by PhotoReaders were not observed; indeed, the reading rates were generally comparable to those for normal reading. Moreover, the PhotoReading expert generally showed an increase in reading time when using the PhotoReading technique in comparison to when using normal reading strategies to process text. This increase in reading time when PhotoReading was accompanied by a decrease in text comprehension. If you already bought into the hype and don't believe me see for yourself, http://www.sti.nasa.gov/Pubs/star/star0003.pdf - it's on page 146. Apparently this program doesn't work after all. Not only that, like another reviewer on Amazon mentioned it seems like this book only gets extremely positive or negative reviews; I took the liberity to look at the profiles of people who wrote a positive review and it turns out that most of them reviewed many books similar to this (kudos to LSC's marketing department for reviewing their own books) and they all received 5 stars. Don't buy into this new hype, it's nonsense. Anyone who looks at a book for a couple of minutes and reads the chapter headings will be able to tell you what the book is about, it doesn't take PhotoReading to do that! If you really feel a need to waste money I suggest you send it to me and I'll be more than glad to teach you something you already know and even come up with some fancy words like PhotoReading, you'll get your money's worth, I promise.
Rating: 
Summary: Photoreading Whole Mind Read System
Review: Using the techniques in this book has increased my reading skills considerably. This book described how to utilize meditation and Magic Eye (3D picture books) to help in allowing the whole mind to understand what is being read. I have also found that after photoreading at 9PM I wake up at 2AM understanding the whole book. But sometimes I wake up with a slight confused headache, which goes away before my regular wakeup time. This has been diminshing over the weeks. I found that my thinking and understanding of complex problems has changed to the better. I believe I was ready to read and accept this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Changed my reading habits. Excellent!
Review: This book is an updated version of the greatest "How to" reading book, "How to Read a Book", by Charles Van Doren. Accept, the types of reading that Van Doren advocates are augmented with, what is essentially, a concentration/focus element, and the outlining techniques of Van Doren, have been replaced by Mind Mapping. Photoreading is based on focusing your mind, and building understanding of material, in 5 concentrated, purposeful passes. Your knowledge of the book goes from general, to detailed, as you quickly move through the steps of the system. The Photoreading book itself, is structured to be Photoread from the get go. The "photo" component, happens when you can actually see the physical page, and words, in your minds eye, when you recall the material. There is an exercise: Get a dictionary, then Photoread that dictionary. Put the dictionary down, and think of a word. Then try to picture where that word might be within the dictionaries pages. Turn to the word, and you'll be astonished how close, or right on you were. I found this fascinating, and it hooked me in to the system. Developing visual recall is a definite bonus. However, Photoreading is based in the idea that 80% of information is contained in 20% of material. It's true with this book. Some of this book has testimonials, and product placement for Learning Strategies Corp. But if you read the book in the recommended way (follow the icons and Photoread it) you skip the superfluous, and dive right in. The book was definitely worth my time and effort, in breaking old reading habits, and replacing them with an efficient, excellent way to read.
Rating:
Summary: bad book
Review: this book is not satisfying book . the author says to read ( photoread )in 1 second 2 pages or 25000 words per minute
then use some old speed reading methods to understand the material .
in other words he just wanna encourage you to read fast by telling you that if you just look at the pages differently your subconscious will understand the the pages . of course you will not understand anything unless you will read again (normal reading )
in summary if u wanna just what is in the book . it is just telling you how to see the pages differntly and using old speed reading methods
i advise you strongly to read speed reading and mind mapping by tony buzan . even if you think that photoreading is working because you will need it after just merely seeing the pages .
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Rating:
Summary: Save Your Money
Review: Learn from my loss and save yourself a buck! I signed up for the Photoreading courses with an open mind and high hopes while in the midst of my MBA studies and working full time. Learning is one of my life's passiones and photoreading seemed to be a perfect complement. At the beginning of the course's first day, each participant introduced him or herself as well as his/her objectives for signing up for the course. Being the only participant from a non Ivy-League school, I was highly encouraged to be in the company of such a well-educated group. By the end of the second hour questions and doubts began to pop up. By the afternoon break the Harvard and Wharton MBA students began telling the teacher that her explanations seemed more like excuses (and excuses for her excuses) rather than solid answers to clarify their questions. She, a PhD Psychologist, responded very unprofessionally by saying that we just weren't being open-minded enough. At the end of the day we all agreed we had been ripped off and no one return to finish the course.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting concept, not sure if it works.
Review: Its an interesting concept and I enjoyed reading the book and trying out the excersises. I believe that there is some validity to the principals but I think you may need more then this little book provides to truly be able to use the system. Paul Scheele sells a whole bunch of more expensive sets of learning material from his website (of course) I haven't bought any yet but I'm very tempted to based on this book.
Rating:
Summary: it deserves no stars...
Review: I actually took the Photoreading course, and got the book as part of the course. I did NOT read faster, I had NO improvement in comprehension, and could not make any sense of anything in the way of "techniques" as taught by the instructor. Better spend your money on a real speed reading course, such as the Power Reading Course with Audio CD, or the more expensive Reading Genius from Nightingale Conant...
Rating:
Summary: A Shameless Crock
Review: I've read this book and tried the techniques. There is nothing useful in this book that isn't standard "accelerated learning" methods of reading and organzing information. The "photoreading" aspect of the book is to flip through the book page by page, looking at the pages with unfocused eyes. You thereby (the author claims) subconsciously absorb the information contained within those pages. Nonsense. True, you might get through a book in one-third the time, but that isn't because you are reading it. You are scanning it looking for chunks of important information, and speed reading those chunks (Mr. Scheele, "M.A.", displaying his love of jargon, eschews the standard nomenclature by calling this "rapid reading" instead of speed reading.) As others have noted, this book consists of a great deal--and I mean a LOT--of product promoting. I gave this book one star because of the utter dishonesty of the claims. If I could give it negative stars, I would. If you want to learn speed reading and accelerated learning, try some of Tony Buzan's books. They are more honest. Photoreading is so bad I couldn't even get my dog to chew it up--and he's an animal who will happily trot around the acreage here with a days-dead rodent in his mouth.
Rating:
Summary: absolutely NOT TRUE!
Review: I should like to call your attention to a number of
scientific studies which have proven beyond any reasonable
doubt that what this book proposes to teach is a fallacy and a a lie.
In Ericsson's "The Road to Excellence" you will find that in
chapter 7 - "Expertise in Reading", the authors (Wagner and
Stanovich) cite a number of scientific studies. Have you
read this chapter or have you read these studies? You are strongly advised to do so!
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