[Tsuwabuki]

What you're suggesting is ideographic learning. We tried that about 20 years ago with native speakers in America. The trouble we learned was that while reading becomes very, very quick due to, as you say, recognition of words as pictures (almost like Kanji), the student fails to grasp phonics and cannot usually spell back a word they could read. After three years the project was abandoned. I would no more use it with my students than I would use it with native speakers. I simply don't agree that ideographic learning is a capable overall option.