It's funny though how different people respond to learning music theory differently. I started on guitar when I was 19. I played for a long time at campfire level. When my kids started learning music I also learnt a lot, and now I know scale shapes and modes on guitar, so I can reasonably play to a song I'm hearing for the first time, then figure it out by ear. But I just cannot make the leap to knowing the notes at each position. I can read music, very slowly, to play on piano, but fluency has never clicked for me even though I've put the time in.

My 8 year old hardly ever practices but just looks at the music and knows the notes on piano and violin.

In any case, I agree that this isn't that helpful to being able to play, it's just an interesting way to understand why things are as they are.