[lordnacho]

But they can learn to read before they know the alphabet by heart. Learning the alphabet is just a weird thing we do that has no intrinsic value.

Similarly, there's a lot of math that you can touch before you are entirely certain of the lower level stuff.

[jacalata]

How can you read without knowing all the letters?

[schoen]

There is a theory that we can read by recognizing the entire shape of a word without processing individual letters within it ("gestalt recognition"). If I understand correctly, this is the same as or similar to the "lexical route" of perceiving words without sounding them out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-route_hypothesis_to_readi...

I'm pretty sure I learned to read mostly this way, with a big assist from having adults read aloud to me and so memorizing particular stories and then recognizing the appearance of the written words within those stories. Learning about all the letters might have come afterward, and helped me to understand why words are spelled as they are, and also to acquire the "non-lexical route" of systematically sounding out words I didn't know.

Reading acquisition is a pretty complicated process, and I think if we're not teachers or psychologists we might forget that there are so many sub-parts in this process, and that they might also happen in a different order for different children.

[zo1]

I think they're referring to reciting the alphabet. And reading is much more than just "knowing all the letters". It's context, shapes of words themselves, etc.

I'm not an expert on any of these things, mind you. Just that I learnt to speak and read my home-tongue without ever being able to memorize its alphabet. Now that I think about it, I still can't recite it, yet I speak/write the language fluently.

[jdmichal]

For the same resaon you can prboably read this sennetce wiothut much trobule, desipte its mupltile typos.