Reply #20: But that is not how we actually read

[KurtNYC]

we aren't 'reading' words like the following phonetically, we are recognizing them:
of
does
weight (vs. wait)

None of those words would read phonetically the way we actually say them. So we are recognizing a word and saying it. Eg. the rules of spelling ('i before e' etc) are so horribly flawed that they aren't rules at all. We just recognize them. We memorize the way words are spelled because the relationship between the sound or a word and its spelling is rather arbitrary.