Yes! I remember being in elementary school and my teachers used to do this. It's very beneficial to a child's learning especially at a very young age. Once they understand this they start using words that in my opinion very big for their age. It's shocking because you wouldn't expect them to use or understand big words at such a young age, but because of phonemic awareness they have an understanding.

Habituation could be seen as both a negative and positive. Being that you've got accustomed to it, if it's a bad habit, being that you're a little older it might be hard to condition yourself out of that habituation.

I feel like this happens because we're thinking about how it'll benefit us at the end. It's always the end goal. For example they used the student who goes to the bar on Thursday vs the one who stays home to study. For the one who stays to study he knows he'll get a good grade and is probably close to graduating and once to just be done. But the other student is probably thinking that it's just one exam and that he'll have plenty of time to make up for it.

With observation comes trial and error. They'll be plenty of times I would observe something but still wouldn't catch onto it as quickly. Trial and error is that bit of practice that'll help you fully understand how to do something.