Agreed... but we still have to accumulate the letters into words somehow, whether in our"mind's ear" or our "mind's eye", so if writing down in our minds helps that process, is it bad?

I mentioned "cruel paradox" in a recent post, but it really is: by the time we have actually learned to read CW, we will have learned the best way for us, specifically, learn - because we're all different, evidently (who'd have thought? ;-) . All we can do is to keep sampling the advice of those who have walked the walk, pick up and use what works, and leave aside that which doesn't.

"Some of the advice in the old books really does not make sense, makes me wonder if the people who wrote them could actually read code." I agree: there's some complete B.S. on YouTube on learning CW these days, too: drawing dots and dashes on the the capital letters, or memorizing phrases with matching cadence, to give two examples... "Learning the code" (as in translating from letters into code) is one thing: learning to copy at a workable rate is something completely different.

j.

    The post I just sent got me thinking. Mainly about learning code entirely by sound as opposed to writing it down. Its interesting to me that the advice given in very old books is to learn by writing. I think this is because the majority of those interested wanted to get jobs as operators where writing was absolutely necessary. The method was long hand. I had an old military handbook (mostly just the ARRL "Learning the Code" book in disguise) which taught printing. It had a system of printing to increase the speed. Works up to maybe 15 WPM. Long hand is faster but you have to have a good "fist" to be readable. I think if you learn by writing it down you won't always be able to recognize letters when just heard without writing. I think being able to take code in writing is important but that one needs to be able to recognize letters by sound alone. Some of the advice in the old books really does not make sense, makes me wonder if the people who wrote them could actually read code.
    BTW, I have a couple of sounders. Code just sounds different on a sounder than as tones, not the difference between American and Continental code but the rendition on the instrument. Really two different things.