By the way, even though the word リス is often written with katakana, it’s not a loanword. Well, it’s from Chinese, but those kinds of words are called かんご.
The kanji for リス is difficult, so they don’t use it.
I studied Japanese for a few years before starting wanikani so I’m not sure if I can tell you exactly "when?
", but I think starting off reading everything out loud would be good practice. Good luck!
Aww Google better be more patient!
As you grow more vocab foundations, it’ll become easier to pick apart individual words. We usually say like when you are at around WK 10-20, you’ll slowly read and notice more in sentences. That’s also the time we recommend people begin to study grammar more intensely too.