See "orthographic mapping." When you see a word you haven't learned yet, you look carefully at the letters in order to figure out how to pronounce it. Once you

See "orthographic mapping." When you see a word you haven't learned yet, you look carefully at the letters in order to figure out how to pronounce it. Once you do this enough times for that word, it's saved into memory. You see the letters and you can retrieve that the word very quickly. Next time you encounter a new word, try to catch yourself sounding it out in your head. I wasn't really aware of the process until I tried.