I'm not sure visualization is necessary -- I can't visualize much at all, and definitely don't visualize words, but misspelt words are immediately obvious to me

I'm not sure visualization is necessary -- I can't visualize much at all, and definitely don't visualize words, but misspelt words are immediately obvious to me. They don't look right -- so maybe you need to have a memory of the way words look, but you don't need to be able to actively recall it (ie visualize them) ? I've always assumed that spelling ability was linked to reading a lot when young, but that's just my personal experience so there's probably research somewhere saying that theory's wrong :-) As an aside, it's a minor miracle that reading is possible at all (ie that we can do it fluidly and without conscious effort rather than as a laborious decoding and sounding out process). There's no inherent reason why the visual and language parts of the brain should be so capable of working together -- they never evolved to do it.)