Comment by WorldMaker

11 days ago

Reading word shapes comes from a place of good, studied intent. Reading word shapes is how people who read quickly read. It is in many ways an advanced way of reading. Trying to jump to it was a hope that you could shortcut some of the literacy curve. Unfortunately, trying and sometimes failing to read word shapes is also how some neurodivergent brains work naturally (the family of dyslexias as the big complex elephant in the room). If your brain jumps directly to word shape, and somewhat often gets it wrong, being forced to slow down, break words apart and start from smaller basic building blocks can be helpful.

It's a reminder that different people learn at different paces.

I think overall the additional details expand and perhaps better the metaphor: a lot of people want to jump directly to the advanced CSS stuff and skip the fundamentals. For some people that works and may be a shortcut. Other people need to spend more time breaking their teeth on the fundamentals, getting them wrong, learning from their mistakes, and getting rock solid on the slower building blocks before trying to do anything advanced.