[Tor3]

When I started Japanese a long time ago I would read (small) children's books because all I could read was hiragana. With spaces, for the smallest children. And that was all I read and could read. And yet.. as soon as I could read various words with kanji, the reading got easier and faster.

[Suppafly]

>And yet.. as soon as I could read various words with kanji, the reading got easier and faster.

Could part of that be due to the fact that your vocabulary was also increasing at that time?

[Tor3]

No, it wasn't because of vocabulary, which has only very slowly increased over time. The reading difference is instant and very noticeable. I can't read hiragana fast enough (matching speech) to follow subtitles which are all in hiragana, for example, while I can if there's kanji (though only if I can read it, there's still lots I can't read). This can be changed forth and back and tested with sites like Animelon, for example.