§156

Sections §156-78 examine reading. Wittgenstein says that 'for purposes of this examination' he won't count the understanding of what is read as part of 'reading'. What are his purposes? - To shed light on the discussion of understanding.
Hacker: "'Reading' is deliberately detached from understanding, since this example is used to illuminate understanding and hence must not invoke understanding of what is read". - If Wittgenstein did invoke understanding of what is read that would assume that 'understanding' was already perspicuous.

Is our concept of reading usually detached from understanding? - In some cases it seems that we would tie the two together. If I were to ask someone if they could read German I would mean 'do you understand written works in German?'. However, you might ask if someone could read Russian and they might say 'in a way I can' - and mean that they could read Cyrillic script but not understand Russian - and this would be a legitimate use of 'read'.

What is to count as reading, for the sake of Wittgenstein's examination?
"...rendering out loud what is written or printed...writing from dictation, copying something printed, playing from sheet music..."

What goes on when someone who has learnt to read reads something? - Their eyes pass along the printed words, they might say the words out loud. We would also say that someone has read something if they are able to repeat the written sentence word for word afterwards even if they haven't said the sentence out loud or to themselves. Someone can read aloud without attending to what they are reading (so attending to what is read is not necessary for reading - in some cases, at the very least).

Two temptations:
If we look at someone beginning to read we might be tempted to say that reading is a conscious mental activity - because this is what seems to be missing when we say that the beginner is not really reading (when they guess words from the context or say bits of the passage they've learnt by heart without looking at the page).
We might also be tempted to say of the beginner that only they really know whether they're (really)reading or saying the words by heart (which again suggests that reading is a conscious mental activity that only the reader 'has access to')