In Polish the mapping letters->sounds is pretty simple, and nobody asks kids to pronounce a word (because anybody can do it after learning the general rules for a few weeks).

But the mapping sounds->letters isn't as obvious, because there's some tech debt there (ch == h, ó == u, rz == ż or sz depending on the preceding letter).

So if you know how the word sounds you're not always sure how it's spelled, but if you know how it's spelled you always know how it sounds.

In English the mapping is non-obvious both ways.